Two notebooks of Thomas Carlyle, from 23d March, 1822, to 16th May, 1832:

University of California • Berkeley

From the Library of

Charles Erskine Scott Wood

and his Wife

Sara Bard Field

Given in Memory of

JAMES R.CALDWELL

The Committee on Publication of the Grolier
Club certifies that this copy of "Two Note
Books of Thomas Carlyle " is one of an
edition of three hundred and eighty-seven
copies on hand-made paper, and three
copies on vellum; that the printing was
done from types which have been distrib-
uted, and that the press work was completed
in the month of April, 1898.

TWO NOTE BOOKS OF
THOMAS CARLYLE

TWO NOTE BOOKS

OF

THOMAS CARLYLE

FROM 23d MARCH 1822
TO 16th MAY 1832

EDITED BY

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON

NEW YORK

THE GROLIER CLUB

MDCCCXCVIII

v^-^

j 976

TWO NOTE BOOKS

OF

THOMAS CARLYLE

FROM 23d MARCH 1822
TO 16th MAY 1832

EDITED BY

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON

NE\
THE GROLIER
MDCCCXCVIU

Copyright, 1898, by the Grolier Club

INTRODUCTION.

The Notebooks of Carlyle printed in this
volume contain records of his thought and
work from March, 1822, to June, 1832 — ten
years which in many respects were the most
important of his life : for during their course he
was married, and his genius discovered its true
quality and bent ; he wrote his Life of Schil-
ler, Sartor Resartus, and many of his most
characteristic and interesting essays ; he be-
came widely known as a new power in litera-
ture ; he was in friendly relations with Goethe ;
he formed acquaintance with many of the
foremost men of letters in England, and en-
tered into relations with the life of the world
outside of Ecclefechan, Edinburgh, and Had-
dington. At the beginning of the books he
is a poor student, without definite prospects
or decided aims, without knowledge of his
own capacities, and little acquainted with the
world or known by it. At the end he is still
very poor, but with ascertained powers, al-
ready exercising a strong influence on the
thought of his time, and with a well-planted
and rapidly growing reputation.

The Notebooks display in their irregular
entries and miscellaneous contents the wide

INTRODUCTION.

range of his interests, the general course of
his reading, the increase of his intellectual
resources, the gradual maturing of his mind.
They contain his reflections upon books and
men, the first rough jottings of his thought,
and the records of current experience, set
down not for the eyes of others, but as pri-
vate memoranda for his own use. They ex-
hibit his unwearied industry, and his mental
ardor, vigor, and independence, while they
reveal as well the strength of his moral con-
victions and the tenderness of his affections.
To one who knows how to fill out the sketch
which they afford, the character of their writer
stands plain and impressive in its sincerity,
integrity, and originality.

A considerable part of these books was
printed by Mr. Froude in his Life of Carlyle,
but, as was generally the case with his tran-
scripts from manuscript, with many inaccu-
racies.

Although Mr. Froude's selections were ju-
diciously made, their fragmentary character
deprives them of a part of the interest and
value which the Notebooks as a whole pos-
sess, in their illustration of the disposition and
methods of their author. The very triviality
of some of the entries which the books con-
tain shows that mingling of trifling incidents

TWO NOTE BOOKS.

and experiences with serious permanent con-
cerns which gives to every life a double
aspect. The deep, constant current flows
steadily on, while its surface is ruffled by the
breath of the moment, brightened by the
passing gleam, or darkened by the flitting
shadow. The picture of life is complete only
when the details, each insignificant in itself,
have their due part in the composition.

To the student of the growth of Carlyle's
intellectual powers and the development of
his opinions, these books afford material of
interest hardly inferior to that contained in
his Reminiscences and in his Letters — letters
remarkable beyond most others for the full-
ness of their exhibition of the character of
their writer, for their sincerity and directness,
and for the union in them of ease and rapid-
ity of composition with excellence of expres-
sion. The Notebooks display in like manner,
if in less degree, the mastery which Carlyle
possessed over his own faculties. He com-
plains often of the difficulty he experienced in
writing, but his letters and his journal alike re-
veal the mental discipline which enabled him
to give off-hand an adequate and clear expres-
sion to his thought. There is seldom an erasure
or defective phrase in his most rapid and in-
stant writing.

INTRODUCTION.

apparently I had been altogether much in
luck in this didactic adventure. Which
proved abundantly the fact : the two Youths
both took to me with unhesitating liking, and
I to them; and we never had anything of
quarrel, or even of weariness and dreariness,
between us : such ' teaching ' as I never did,
in any sphere before or since ! Charles, by
his qualities, his ingenuous curiosities, his
brilliancy of faculty and character, was actu-
ally an entertainment to me, rather than a
labour; if we walked together (which I re-
member sometimes happening) he was the
best company I could find in Edinburgh.
I had entered him of Dunbar's Third Greek
Class in College. In Greek and Latin, in
the former in every respect, he was far my
superior, and I had to prepare my lessons by
way of keeping him to his work at Dunbar's.
Keeping him 'to work' was my one diffi-
culty, if there was one, and my essential func-
tion. I tried to guide him into reading, into
solid inquiry and reflection; he got some
mathematics from me, and might have had
more. He got, in brief, what expansion into
wider fields of intellect, and more manful
modes of thinking and working, my poor pos-
sibilities could yield him; and was always
generously grateful to me afterwards ; friends

TWO NOTE BOOKS.

of mine, in a fine frank way, beyond what I
could be thought to merit, he, Arthur, and all
the Family, till death parted us."

The boys had arrived in Edinburgh about
the middle of January, and the charge of
them took up the better part of eVery day,
"from ten o'clock till about one, and from
six till nearly eight." During his free hours
one of Carlyle's chief occupations was the
translation of Legendre's " Elements of
Geometry," a work to which he had been set
by Dr. (afterward Sir David) Brewster, who
was then editing the "Edinburgh Encyclo-
paedia," to which Carlyle had contributed
various articles, mainly biographical. 1

But his thoughts were set upon a Book of
his own, and he was " riddling Creation " for
a subject. Early in 1822 he had well nigh
determined to write an Essay on the Civil
Wars and the Commonwealth of England;
not a history, but a study of the national
character as it' was then displayed, and it is
with notes made with this intention in mind
that the Notebooks begin.

l These articles were respectable compilations, ser-
viceable enough for their purpose, but of no distinguished
merit. They have been reprinted in a volume, as a
bookseller's speculation, under the title : Montaigne and
other essays, chiefly biographical, now first collected. By
Thomas Carlyle. London, 1897. 8vo.

INTRODUCTION.

The books have been printed in close con-
formity with the manuscript. A few correc-
tions of the errors of a hasty pen have been
made ; a few careless misspellings have been
set right, some words in foreign tongues have
been italicized, some quotation marks have
been supplied. But the integrity of the orig-
inal writing has been scrupulously preserved,
even at the cost of uniformity in printing.
The words in brackets, except a few which
supply obvious omissions, are not editorial
additions, but are bracketed in the manu-
script; a few words abridged in the writing are
filled out with bracketed letters in the printed
text. Some lines, in two or three places, not
amounting to a page in all, have been omit-
ted. The manuscript used for the press was
a copy of the originals made some years
since, but the proof-sheets have been care-
fully compared with the original Notebooks
by Mr. Alexander Carlyle of Edinburgh, their
present possessor.

Charles Eliot Norton.

Cambridge, Massachusetts,
February, 1898.

The first Notebook is a volume of one
hundred and eighty- eight pages of small
duodecimo size. It has been carefully pre-
served, but on some of the pages the ink has
now somewhat faded, though nowhere so far
as to make the writing indistinct. The sec-
ond Notebook consisted originally of seventy-
six pages of nearly the same size as those of
the first, but to its original leaves others were
added, of different and somewhat smaller pa-
per, sewn into the cover. Of these addi-
tional pages forty-four are occupied with the
memoir of James Carlyle (printed in Carlyle's
Reminiscences), and thirty-four with the en-
tries with which this volume closes.

LIST OF BOOKS CITED UNDER ABBREVIATED
TITLES IN THE NOTES.

Reminiscences.

Reminiscences by Thomas Carlyle.
Edited by Charles Eliot Norton. 2
vols., cr. 8vo, London, 1887.

Early Letters.

Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle.
1 8 14-1826. Edited by Charles Eliot
Norton. 2 vols., cr. 8vo, London, 1881.

Letters.

Letters of Thomas Carlyle, 1826-
1836. Edited by Charles Eliot Nor-
ton. 2 vols., cr. 8vo, London, 1889.

Essays.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays by
Thomas Carlyle. People's Edition,
7 vols., i2mo, London, 1872.

Life.

Thomas Carlyle. A history of the
first forty Years of his Life, 1795-
1835. By James Anthony Froude.
2 vols., 8vo, London, 1882.
Thomas Carlyle. A History of his
Life in London. 1 834-1 881. By
James Anthony Froude. 2 vols., 8vo,
London, 1885.

i822. (at Edin 1 } I suppose.) 1

NOTE BOOK.

Begun while reading Clarendon's History.

23d March, Quod bonum, faustum, felix,

1 8 2 2 . 2 fortunatum sit /

Dr. Burgess and Mr. Mar-
shal — who were they ? (page 239).

Oliver Cromwell's remark to L? Falkland
touching the " Remonstrance " or declaration
of grievances voted & printed by the P! —
about the date of King's return from Scot-
land. Oliver said " they would have a sorry

1 Note by Carlyle made in 1866, when, at the time of
writing his Reminiscences, he looked over this volume.

2 At the date of the beginning of this note-book, Car-
lyle, twenty-six years old, was engaged in reading for a
work he had in mind on the Civil War and the Com-
monwealth. On April 27, 1822, he wrote to his brother
Alexander: " Within' the last month I have well-nigh
fixed upon a topic. My purpose ... is to come out with
a kind of Essay on the Civil War and the Commonwealth
of England — not to write a history of them — but to ex-
hibit, if I can, some features of the national character as
it was then displayed, supporting my remarks by mental
portraits, drawn with my best ability, of Cromwell, Laud,
George Fox, Milton, Hyde, etc., the most distinguished
of the actors in that great scene." Early Letters, ii. 56.
Before the end of the year the design was relinquished
under the pressure of other engagements. Id. p. 171.
But the work done now stood him in good stead twenty
years later in the preparation of his Cromwell.

NOTE BOOK OF

debate " — the thing being so plain j and next
day when the debate was done and not sor-
rily — he said, if the question had failed " he
w? have sold his all next morning, and never
seen Eng? more " — so near (quoth Claren-
don) was the poor Kingdom to its deliver-
ance (247).

Williams Archbishop of York (formerly
Lincoln) seems to have been a very queer
man (p. 272). He wrote a book against
Laud — what was it ? *

The King comes to the H. C. to seize
the members accused of Treason, viz. Pym,
Hambden, Hollis, Hazelrig & Strode — with
Lord Kimbolton — all this by advice of Lord
Digby (p. 280).

The grant of Londonderry and the adja-
cent districts had been wrested from the City
of London (together with a fine of ^50,000)
by the Star Chamber (first set up in Harry
7th's time) ; afterwards restored — but, as
the City tho*, more out of fear of the Par!
than a sense of justice. This one cause of
their Roundheadism.

" Perfunctorily "— "upstart companions." 2

1 How ' ' queer ' ' Archbishop Williams was appears from
Bishop Hacket's Life of him, which Coleridge called " a
delightful and instructive book," but which Johnson, in
his Life of Ambrose Phillips, described not less truly as
"written with such depravity of genius, such mixture of
the fop and pedant as has not often appeared."

2 Words used by Clarendon.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

25th and 26th Read Milton's Defensio
March. Pop. Angl. ag* the Def. Peg.

of Saumaise. Exhibits some
new shades of John's character — his stern
detestation of tyranny — his contempt for
his enemies — and perhaps the ordinary
tone of his intercourse with them in private
life. There is a kind of rude wit mixed
up with his fierce invective. But what aus-
terity — what contempt for the mere pomp
and circumstance of things ! He seems to
tear the unhappy pedagogue into a thousand
shreds, to trample his remains and beat them
into perfect mire — and at last he sends his
soul to the infernal shades. Furcifer, Bipedum
nequissime, etc., etc. — all the terms of indig-
nation and contempt which the Latin affords
are exhausted in abusing Salmfasius]. His
wife too is said to have " worn the breeks " ;
& several cuts are made thro' this rent. The
whole seems very ill-bred: but John was not
a man of breeding. No newspapers then &
his work is like the concentration of fifty
" Couriers " or " Chronicles." Conceive that
all the Radicals had " one neck " and put
Gifford to strike it off — what a stroke he
would fetch ! So is it with Milton. Besides
Carolus II was then getting settled in Scot-
land, and M. naturally feared that the good
work would be destroyed and with it all that
was worth preserving in England. What is

NOTE BOOK OF

the history of Salmasius ? {Les Daciers, les
Saumaises — Volt. Temple du gout 1 — I must
see — am very stupid to-night and bilious —
nHmporte, I must along with Clarendon second
vol. which I trust will suit me better than the
first did.) Milton's mode of reasoning has
something curious in it : he appeals to no first
principles hardly, but wanders in a wilderness
of quotations and examples, summoning to
his aid all that Jew or Gentile ever did or
said on the subject. Still more is this true of
Saumaise, who set the example of this species
of disceptation first — an example however
readily enough followed by his opponent. Are
our " first principles " more solid than his ?
I doubt if they are so much more, as we often
think. Nine tenths of our reasonings are ar-
tificial processes, depending not on the real
nature of things but on our peculiar mode of
viewing things, and therefore varying with all
the variations both in the kind and extent of
our perceptions. How is this ? Truth immer
wird nie ist ? 2

Newspapers did exist in Milton's time : the
first, " Mercurius," was set on foot during the
Spanish Armada (See Aikin's Memoirs of Q.
Elizabeth — a book about the weight of

1" La j'apercus les Daciers, les Saumaises,
Gens he'risse's de savantes fadaises."

Voltaire, Le Temple du Gotit.
2 " Is truth always relative, never absolute?"

THOMAS CARLYLE.

McCrie's Knox — which is no immense
weight. She * talks of revels, masques, courtly
vanities, courtly feuds; he of Masses, sol[emnJ
conferences, synods, books of discipline : each
in a peculiar solid prosaic vein — hebetia in-
genia cum aliquanto doctrinae. 2 )

I read the Defetisio but "perfunctorily."
I must read it again, if I persist in this work.
And Salm.'s too — which is no light matter.

Fleetwood — first a trooper in the Guards
sent by Essex to Shrewsbury — with a letter.
(See p. 21, notes.)

Stanza by Swift or Rochester on Charles II
his spouse Katherine of Portugal —

Here 's a health to Kate,

Our Master's mate,

Of the royal house of Lisbon ;

And the Devil take Hyde,

And the Bishop beside,

Who made her bone of his bone !

Such is the power of rhyme, and of one
double ending — certainly indeed the happiest
possible. (From South ey's travels — the most
contemptible, pragmatical — Yet he writes
well now : Esperance ! — I read it 2 weeks
ago.)—

Excellent description of the Battle of Edge-
hill — very excellent (pp. 38, 39.) Edgehill

1 Miss Lucy Aikin.

2 " Dull natures, with somewhat of learning."

NOTE BOOK OF

is near Keinton (Kington) on the east border
of Warwickshire.

Proposals — osals — osals, all abortive.

Second Battle — at Bradock-Down near
Liskard in Cornwall ; wherein the Parliament]
forces (under Ruthven a Scot) were defeated
by Hopton, in the winter of 1642. Indiffer-
ently described.

Third battle in March 1643 (on a Sunday
like the first) at Hopton-heath 2 miles from
Stafford. P. beat again.

An attempt at treaty in the beginning of
1643 at Oxford; then Reading taken. Wal-
ler (the poet) talked & vapoured much and
plotted a little for the King — was betrayed
by his servant, had Tomkins his brother-in-
law hanged with another, and saved his own
life by the most abject prostrations, affecting
to be " awakened " and listening with great
contrition to various ghostly comforters sent
to him; then glozing the H. C. with fair
speeches (for indeed he had a pleasant wit
and could plead very cunningly & moving-
ly) he prevailed on the P. to accept a fine
of £1 0,000, and banish him to the isle of
Bermuda — not hang him as he deserved but
for his poetry & pregnant parts. — This was
in June — '43.

The great Hambden killed at Chalgrove-
field, between Thame and Oxford on a Sun-
day morning, having ridden forth with many

6

THOMAS CARLYLE.

others to punish Prince Rupert for beating
up Essex' quarters, an enterprise contrived
by one Hurry a Scot, who had served in the
Low Countries, and with the P. at Edgehill,
but deserted to the K. after — his abilities not
being as he tho* sufficiently rewarded. This
Hambden was undoubtedly a great char-
acter; & his worth has been sufficiently
acknowledged by the affection which his
country yet bears to him. Hambden &
Washington are the two people best loved of
any in history. Yet they had few illustrious
qualities about them ; only a high degree of
shrewd business-like activity, and above all
that honest-hearted unaffected fearless probity,
which we patriotically name English, in a
higher degree than almost any public men
commemorated in History. After all " hon-
esty is the best policy." Yet to have seen a
Caesar, an Alexander, a Napoleon honest — !
What a splendid thing — what a difficult not
to say impossible one ! (fudge !).

Hambden lingered three weeks — his
wound was in the shoulder-bone. He seems
to have been the ablest and best man of
England. To Caesar, Alex!, Nap. &c. &c.
we may pause before assigning any superior-
ity even in talent (whatever they had in for-
tune) over him — his talents, at least were
unrivalled in political management ; and for
virtuous conduct he has no fellow. — Claren-

NOTE BOOK OF

don draws his character well (p. 306). Staid,
sober, a keeper of his own counsel, resolute
yet meek, generous as the Lion, subtle as the
serpent. What a " Protector " he would
have made had he lived !

Battle at Stratton hill on the w. side of
Cornwall, where the P. forces under Stam-
ford are shamefully defeated (16th May
1643).

Birch's " historical and critical account of
the Life & Writings of Milton."

Battles of Landsdown near Bath, and of
Roundway — down near Devizes — in both
of which Sir W. Waller is beaten. July 1643.

Geoffrey Chaucer's house Donnington,
within two miles 1 of Newbury — in Wilts.
Glo'ster recovered, and the battle of New-
bury fought by Essex, both sides claiming
the victory. Lord Falkland was killed here.
" Of so flowing and obliging a humanity and
goodness to mankind, and of that primitive
simplicity & integrity of life." Men came to
him by his commerce " to examine and refine
those grosser propositions, which laziness and
consent made current in vulgar conversation."
— Beautiful delineation of his character (p.
277) : a finer person, as here shadowed forth,
than even Hambden. — But it is wrong to set

1 Clarendon says, *' within a mile."
8

THOMAS CARLYLE.

two such men at variance in their posthumous
reputation, now when the contests that set
them at variance in their conduct have passed
away into the vast and ever-increasing, ever-
stranger ruin of things that were. How ex-
pressive is that " sad and shrill " tone, with
which in the Council he would pronounce
the words, Peace! Peace! — when there was
no peace ! I know few finer specimens of
men than H. & F. What would a man not
give to be like them ? Vain bargain ! these
are the favourites of Nature; we are made
of poorer clay. — F. died in Lord Byron's
regiment.

"The learned & eminent Mr. Chilling-
worth" taken at the retaking of Arundel by
Sir W. Waller, and so ill-treated that he died
within a few days (sic scribit). This C. was
a sceptic finally, having been a catholic first.

Soon afterwards (29 th March 1644) Sir W.
defeated the K's army under Hopton & Brent-
ford, at Arlesford — between Winchester &
Farnham.

Oliver Cromwell was chosen to command
the horse, under Manchester head of the five
associated counties, Essex, Cambridge]
N[orfolk] S[uffolk] Bedf. Hunt. 1 — Year 1644

1 " This winter arise among certain counties ' Associa-
tions ' for mutual defense against Royalism and plunder-
ous Rupertism." Carlyle's Cromwell, 3d ed. i. 175.

Huntingdonshire was not of the association mentioned
in the text.

NOTE BOOK OF

somewhat fertile in military exploits. King
eludes Waller very cunningly at Worcester
and comes back to Oxford (Essex being gone
to the west, whither the Queen — then with
child of the future Duchesse d'Orl6ans — see
Bossuet's Oraisons fwiebres — had retired) ;
goes out to meet him; fights at Cropredy-
bridge (on the Cherwell, Northamptonshire)
with moderate success (in June) ; follows Es-
sex into the West, and forces his foot to ca-
pitulate at Lostwithiel, then fights twice within
a week at Newbury — the first time, being
beaten as it seemed, and the second only
showing himself (reinforced) to deliver Don-
nington castle in which his old dotard drunk-
ard deaf General Brentford (Ruthven) was
besieged. He then went to Oxford. Shortly
after the skirmish of Cropredy-bridge, the
battle of Marston Moor was fought (close to
York on the South), Rupert and Newcastle
being " on the matter " beaten by Manchester,
and chiefly by Cromwell's iron ba?id — as the
Scots all ran like collies (fidem detis ? ). New-
castle went beyond sea immed. — Rupert rode
southward; each in a pet with the other: by
which means Charles' affairs in the north were
completely ruined. This Rupert seems to
have been a very boisterous man — brave
and impetuous — but somewhat too head-
strong and overbearing. His poor father,
the Ex-Elector Palatine, Ex- King of Bohmen,

THOMAS CARLYLE.

&c. &c. was in the meanwhile come to Lon-
don ; had taken the Covenant, and been gifted
by a pension. (What became of him at last ?)

Goring the Par.'s guardian (and betrayer)
of Plymouth (or Portsmouth ?) and after-
wards the King's general of the horse ap-
pears to have been a very sufficient cozener;
there is something very clever in him and
very original.

The " self denying ordinance " proposed
by Cromwell and Sir H. Vane, the object be-
ing to get Essex and all Presbyterians ousted
from command.

Uxbridge-treaty is graphically delineated.
I would have gone some distance to see Mr.
Henderson pitted against Bishop Steward —
the theological democracy of 2xw<na against
the vain hierarchy of the South. It is very
curious to see the vehemence wherewith
those highly accomplished divines of the
Prelatical persuasion still insist upon the
continuous transmission of the Episcopal vir-
tue, maintaining it to have passed (like the
electric fluid) with undiminished purity and
intenseness, thro' all the dark and polluted
periods of the Romish superstition, thro' all
the Dunstans and Bonars & Gardiners, to rest
worthily in the liberal and enlightened souls
of Dr. Marsh, Mr. Tomline, and the like —
in our own times — and by them to be as
happily handed down to worthies destined

ii

NOTE BOOK OF

to follow. There seems little danger that
the " Goddess Reason " will ever draw many
votaries to her idolatry from the followers of
that creed; considering that it is now 1822.
Why does not McCrie write a life of Hender-
son ? Dare he not ?

Secret history of Montrose as connected
with O'Neil and the Earl of Antrim (p.
470 &c). Would not this raid of Montrose's
make an admirable history of its kind —
somewhat like the Venice Conjuration
of St.-R6al? Why has [notj Walter Scott
seized it!

Battle of Naseby, where the poor King
was beaten : here is no bad description of it.
Curious anecdote of the Earl of Carnwath
laying hold of the K's bridle — when the
Guards and he were ready to dash upon
Cromwell; and bawling out with a loud
Scotch oath : Will you go upon your death
in an instant ? which exclamation introduced
a misconception and a panic; which panic
" begot " a flight ; which flight &c. &c. The
battle was fought in June 1645, Fairfax im-
perante, & Rupert on the other side " a fiery
ettercap, a fractious chiel." They found the
King's papers here and published them.

Strange that such disputes should be
'Twixt Tweedledum & Tweedledee !

After the loss of Naseby every thing with
12

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Charles went to wreck & ruin. Sir Dick
Greenvil the Nabal, and Goring the dog kept
quarrelling & sparring with all men; there
was nothing but agitation confusion, mis-rule
& despondency. So that in fine C. retired to
Chepstow, thence to Cardiff — thence to va-
rious other places — wandering about with a
purpose ever-changing, a hope ever-declin-
ing — his own servants, even his own neph-
ews, rebelling against him, till nearly all had
"forsook" him & fled. He was twice or
thrice of mind to go and join Montrose; on
one occasion he despatched Lord Digby as
General of the North, who carried a little
army as far as Dumfreeze, and then em-
barked for the Isle of Man, leaving his peo-
ple to shift for themselves as they chose.
Disputes in the West ran higher than ever.
Goring drank and vapoured, wavering be-
tween insanity & treason, and at length set-
tling into the latter (he went to France, and
seemed to aim at selling his army to some
foreign prince, and becoming a Condottiere) :
Sir R. Greenvil intent upon stuffing his own
pantry well, acted even more inconsistently
than Goring; he levied enormous contri-
butions, squeezed fines out of every one he
disliked by imprisonment & hard usage,
commanded to-day what he countermanded
to-morrow, and after ruining all was at length
thrown into prison and allowed to escape

13

NOTE BOOK OF

beyond seas, — when the L d Hopton, to whom
his army had been delivered, could make
no stop to the torrent of ill fortune that
swept away all the royalists of the Kingdom.
Prince Charles went to Scilly in March,
1646; his father being still at Oxford and
trying in vain to obtain a treaty from his
Pari., to engage the Scots to his side (by
the aid of Montrevil, a French agent), or the
Independents, or any one — before he per-
ished utterly. The Generals in the West
were Fairfax and Cromwell ; there was
Poyntz also, and David Lesly who went
from Hereford to beat Montrose, & after-
wards returned into those parts, his valiant
antagonist being defeated at Philipshaugh.

In April 1646, the King surrenders himself
to the Scotch army then at Newark which by
his direction was given up to them; where-
upon they forthwith marched to Newcastle,
keeping the K. with g? respect &c. but as a
prisoner. They seem not well to have
known what to do: the negotiation for his
surrender was managed by Montrevil the
French envoy. The prince meanwhile had
sailed for Jersey, and thence, after much op-
position from his Council, into France.

Third June 1647 King seized at Holmby
in Northamptonshire] by Cornet Joyce —
a knight of the needle, who refused to show
any authority for so doing but " That" (shew-

14

THOMAS CARLYLE.

ing a large pistol), and carried himself rather
sturdily than rudely. He acted by order of
Cromwell, who having been detected in his
dissimulations and crocodile tears, and se-
cretly doomed to be committed one morning
to the Tower, had tho* good to set out to the
army before light, where he found indeed that
u the prejudice entertained against him was
less than he supposed." Charles was brought
to Newmarket.

One day Ireton and Hollis quarrelled; and
the matter went so far that on Ireton's refusal
from conscientious motives to fight Hollis,
the latter " pulled him by the nose " (proh
pudor ! ) and used great plainness of speech to
him ; which incensed the other officers of the
army not a little.

When Charles went to the Scots, old Hen-
derson turned out like a true man to convert
him to the Presbyterian persuasion ; but suc-
ceeded so ill that he was well-nigh converted
himself (credat Apella !), and soon after died
u of a broken heart."

" Clean contrary."

King's treaty with the Scots was signed in
Carisbrook castle in December 1647.

Machiavel " as great an enemy to tyranny
& injustice in any Gov* as any man then was
or now is." " A man were better be a dog " ;
could not " find in their hearts " ; " resolved
to pass themselves in boats."

15

NOTE BOOK OF

In the summer of 1648, the Scots under
the Duke of Hamilton made an inroad into
England, and were defeated by Cromwell in
the most shameful manner, Ham 11 himself
being taken prisoner at Uttoxeter in Stafford-
shire, to which place the rout extended after
it had begun at Preston. Drivellers !

The business of Pomfret Castle is a very
dramatic affair (p. 147. III).

The King was beheaded on the 30th Jan?
1649, and buried at Windsor without pomp.
He had previously been removed from Caris-
brook to Hurst Castle, and was conducted to
Westminster to the " High Court of Justice,"
by Harrison who had once been a lawyer's
clerk in Cheshire and originally was a butcher's
son. Prince C. was in the meantime at the
Hague where he had been left by a part of
the fleet, which mutinied in his behalf, and
was then in Ireland under the command of
P. Rupert. There had been various insur-
rections &c. the year before; all of which
were speedily quelled: one in Kent, and then
in Essex where Colchester being seized was
besieged by Fairfax, and being taken three
of the chief officers were shot — Gascoigne
(a Florentine) excepted, when his doublet
was already off, and his mind made up to die.
There are many picturesque incidents in these
wars. As to the K., he seems to have been
a very good man, tho' weakish and ill-brought
16

THOMAS CARLYLE.

up. Cromwell and the rest look much like a
pack of fanatical knaves — a compound of
religious enthusiasm, and of barbarous sel-
fishness ; which made them stick at no means
for gratifying both the one and the other.
Cromwell is a very curious person. Has his
character been rightly seized yet? I must
peruse the late documents about him.

House of Peers abolished soon after King's
Dth. Poor Lord Capel's escape and recap-
ture (p. 212). Duke Hamilton, L d Holland
with him, were beheaded. — L d Norwich —
was he our old friend Goring ?

The barbarous execution of Montrose (who
appeared in the North for Charles II. & was
easily defeated by Strahan — 1649-50) re-
flects indelible disgrace upon the Scottish
Kirk. Montrose is almost, if not altogether,
the brightest specimen of a man ever pro-
duced by the country. His character is a
fine sample of the heroic ambitious.

Scots again smashed to pieces at Worcester,
3 d September 1650 — Poor knaves !

The act of Navigation passed in anger at
the Dutch about the year 1651 or 2. Where-
by all ships are prohibited from bringing into
England any commodity not produced in the
countries they belonged to. Raynal says this
act was passed by King James ! — This was
the beginning of their quarrel with the Eng-
lish; the mutual spite being aggravated by

2 17

NOTE BOOK OF

various regulations about not " striking flags "
& so forth. The Dutch were dished we all
know. See lives of Blake, Van Tromp, De
Ruyter &c. May 1652.

Received " a brush " (p. 360 & elsewhere).
" Ludlow " succeeded Ireton, who died of the
Plague at Limerick in '50. Was this Ludlow
the Historian ? 1

Cromwell dissolves the Par* by Force ; in
about 3 months summons another elected by
himself; this (Barebone's Par*) delivered up
their commission in about 6 months (Decem-
ber 1653) whereupon he was declared Pro-
tector — by the officers of the Army, and as
such acknowledged by all the Kingdom.
His first Par* was in Sept? 1654, and fairly
elected — tho' by a rule different from the
common. " Strange man — don't know him
— don't."

Lilburn & Wildman curious personages —
particularly the former, first a book-binder —
persecuted by the Star Chamber, which raised
in him a marvfellous] appetite & inclin. to
suffer for the vind. or defense of any oppressed
Truth; then a soldier taken at Brentford &
ready to be condemned ; escapes, fights, then
attacks the Par* then Cromwell, by whom he
was at last tried — acquitted by the j ury . This
was theCobbett of those days — but howmuch
better than ours !

1 He was the historian. See Carlyle's Cromwell, ii. 333.
18

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Cromwell dies 3 d September 1658 — a day
he always tho* very propitious to him — hav-
ing twice been victorious on it formerly. . . .

Fleetwood was the son of Sir Miles Fleet-
wood, and the "troopers of the Guards" to
Essex, among whom was Ludlow, were all
gentlemen's sons. (Began Ludlow 9 th April
1822.)

At the Battle of Edgehill Ludlow's "jaws
for want of use had almost lost their natural
faculty " !

Milton to be appointed adjutant gen! to
Waller. — When did Cromwell & Fairfax
march thro' the city to quell Brown & Massy ?
"Progging" "Gobbet."

Saturday I have now finished the third
13 th April, volume of Clarendon — of which
more afterwards ; and the whole
of Ludlow's Memoirs, concerning which I can
make only a few vague remarks, having read it
hastily & without great study. Ludlow is not
a man of great parts ; but he describes with a
ready a modest & a graphic pencil, the scenes
in which he took part, presenting a distinct tho'
narrow sketch of what himself accomplished
in his walk thro' that confused riot, and of
what he saw in it on looking to the right hand
and to the left. He differs in no important
fact from Clarendon; and impresses us with
an idea of his frank ingenuousness at least

19

NOTE BOOK OF

equal to that of his rival; while his stern sense
of honesty, his unflinching adherence to prin-
ciple thro' good and thro' bad report, his dis-
dain of truckling alike to the open enemies
as to the unworthy friends of republicanism,
tend to inspire us with a higher respect for
his heart & mind, than all the ingenious
speculation and shrewd watchful sagacity of
Clarendon can inspire us with for the mental
gifts which they presuppose. I admire Lud-
low's patient unaffected calmness very highly.
Neither Russell nor Sidney were better men.
Did he blanch before the Royalists at Ox-
ford ? before Cromwell at London ? before
Monk & the new " Convention " ? And
when he fled to Vevay — tho' banished from
his friends his country his wife his property
and cheated of his just fame, and daily beset
with barbarous assassins in a far land — does
he whine or make lament? Compare him
with Rousseau or Ovid or Necker — he is
like a pillar of marble compared with a weep-
ing willow. How was it such noble minds
were generated in those times ? I know not
but think it well worth inquiring into. — Lud-
low writes rather prettily; he describes graph-
ically the siege of Wardour Castle, the " fir-
ing" of a castle in Ireland; the troopers at
Marston Moor; &c. His best description
however, & that unconsciously, is of himself. —
Would it not be right to make out a list of

THOMAS CARLYLE.

the chief personages of that period as well as
the chief events ?

Ellwood's Life of himself — Read it for
the sake of Milton to whom this person was
Reader of Latin at one time ; but found no-
thing therein beyond what is recorded in my
own Milton. Found however something ad-
vantageous and amusing, which I did not at
all anticipate — a picture of human nature
under a somewhat new aspect, delineated
with great liveliness & simplicity & clearness.
Ellwood seems to have been a cheerful quick
pure-minded rather clever little fellow. His
fanaticism is of a curious species : it is obsti-
nacy & enthusiasm without any moroseness
or rancour. He suffered persecutions out of
number, but cherished no revenge against the
authors of them ; his share of worldly com-
fort was small in comparison of what he once
might have hoped for; but his heart was
clear & healthful, and his life may justly be
called happy notwithstanding. What made
it so ? How came he to shew so complete
and consistent & respectable a walk and con-
versation amid so many drawbacks & ob-
structions? His creed was his support, his
all in all. Is it better then to have a straight
road formed for us, tho' a false one, thro' this
confused wilderness of things — than to be
waiting asking searching for a true one, if we
never find it altogether ? Compare Ellwood,

21

NOTE BOOK OF

a weak man, with Alfieri, Goethe, Voltaire,
strong men ; & award the palm ! What is the
proper province of Reason ?

For the rest Ellwood's book is very amus-
ing. It affords a vivid tho' a brief glimpse
of English life in the middle & religious walks
of it, during the reign of Charles II. One
reads it like a kind of Novel.

Milton's history of Britain. The first part
of this is very beautiful — one simile about a
traveller setting out amid " smooth & idle
dreams " equal to anything I know of. * For
fine composition in matter & form see also
the first invasion of Anglesea, and the revolt
of Boadicea. The style is very Latinish, tho'
also very perspicuous : the prejudice against
woman-rule breaks out on all occasions;
some views too of Particular providence,
which did he really entertain? Invocation
at the beginning. On the whole, however,
it is unphilosophically composed. The Saxon
period cannot be better — so cannot be well-
related by any person upon this plan. Per-
haps the moderns have improved in their
mode of writing history. (See Stewart's life of
Robertson ?) Milton's history is like a stone-

1 " By this time, like one who had set out on his way by
night, and travail'd through a Region of smooth or idle
Dreams, our History now arrives on the Confines, where
day-light and truth meet us with a cleer dawn, represent-
ing to our view, though at a farr distance, true colours
and shapes."— Book i. ad Jin.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

dike of ugly whinstones, numberless, shape-
less, joined together with the finest Roman
cement. They were not worth the pains ; ma-
teriem super at opus : better to have left the
cairn as he found it in Hoveden, Mat[thew
of] Westminster], Simeon of Durham, Hunt-
ington, &c. Here follow some agates picked
from it.

Estrildis (a small tragedy ?) & her daughter
Sabra p. 8. " Severn swift guilty of maiden's
death." 1 Boadicea (do ?) p. 28 — She was of
the Iceni about Norwich. A wild Semiramis.
Has not some one sung of her ? 2

Edwin p. 60. his conversion to Christian-
ity (another?) — his wavering fortunes, vis-
ions, loves, ultimate success — " Harryed the
coast" — "felled him" — "to chronicle the
wars of kites & crows fighting & flocking in
the air " — the sceptre found " too hot " for
a man's hand.

Christianity tho! to have come hither A.D.
180.

Monday 15 th April I have this moment fin-
1 \y 2 o'clock P. M. ished the perusal of Mil-
ton's first publication,
entitled " Of Reformation &c." Had he writ-
ten nothing else whatever, it would have

l Milton, "At a Vacation Exercise," v. 96.
2 Perhaps Carlyle had in mind Cowper's so-called Ode,
entitled " Boadicea."

23

NOTE BOOK OF

stamped his name with the ineffaceable im-
press of genius, and shewn him to all the
world as a man no less high & solemn in his
moral nature than rare and richly gifted in his
intellectual powers. There are pieces of as
sublime eloquence here as I ever saw: the
learning of the piece is great, and the logic of
it powerful & as well ordered as in an oration
is needful. He begins by alluding to the cor-
ruptions of the church j then hails the reforma-
tion in a beautiful sentence (p. 250), and tries
to point out why it was less complete in Eng-
land than elsewhere. Solemn protestation
(252). Next comes the main gist of the per-
formance, the reasons that obstruct improve-
ment at this time. The enemies of it are
divided into three classes the Antiquitarians,
the Libertines, the Politicians. Th e t wo former
are discussed in the first book. Difference in
the power & dignity of ancient from those of
modern bishops — besides, the Fathers full of
errors — their works garbled — their example
therefore unbinding even when Constantine
had united the civil to the eccles. power. " How
then should the dim taper" (257). Besides
themselves refer to the Bible as all sufficient —
" homely & y eomanly religion " — Truth — Un-
derstanding (p. 260). " Wherefore should they
not urge only the Gospel, & hold it ever in
their faces like a mirror of Diamond till it
dazzle and pierce their misty eyeballs" (p.
24

THOMAS CARLYLE.

261). — Libertines not convincible. — Figures
in the II? Book about vulgar politics. The
Pope's & clergy's small favour to monarchy-
shown by various instances. Rude fable of
a wen (p. 266). Their measures banish many
subjects, corrupt & irritate the rest — de-
stroy much revenue, and so disafFect Eng-
lishmen — unfitted for peace now make
war. Objections answered — Excommuni-
cation (272-3). Exuberant & felicitous
sarcasm (273). Majestic peroration in the
form of a prayer.

progging, fobbing, rooking, sconced, —
greasy palm — unctuous paunches — fiery
whip — blood diverted from the veins to the
ulcers — &c. Heu quantum ab Mo /

Second pamphlet — " Of Prelatical Epis-
copacy " against Usher. Judges of the Insuffi-
ciency of their " traditional ware " with the skill
and indifferentism of a complete connoisseur —
acquainted with this & with other sources of
truth far purer. Little order — being a reply
rather than an oration. " Drag-net " of
time (p. 239). Fine simile of the robe of
truth & the rags of time's garment (p. 242).

Brerewood — what of him? (p. 201).

Barclay his "Image of minds"? (217). 1

IJohn Barclay, best known by his Argents, extrava-
gantly praised by Coleridge {Lectures on Shakespeare, with
other Literary Remarks, 1849, ii, 236). His Icon Anima-
rum" Image of Minds," " a delineation of the genius and
customs of the European nation," was published in 1614.

25

NOTE BOOK OF

The " sovran treacle of sound doctrine "
(235). " Lin pealing," leave pealing p. 236.

These latter extracts are from " The Reason
of Church Gov*," Milton's third pamphlet,
which I have just concluded, after many in-
terruptions (22 nd April — Saturday) particu-
larly to-day, when idlers not a few have been
here to consume my hours vainly. — The
general character of this tract is vigour of
feeling & thought, clothed in a garb of
rich metaphorical and emphatic language —
presenting a few large views of polity and
morals, and much indignant aversion for
everything connected with the sordid carnal-
ity & worldlymindedness of Prelates & their
office.

The first part is argumentative in the strict
sense; endeavoring to prove 1? that a govern-
ment is established for the Church by divine
Wisdom, and that either Episcopacy or Pres-
bytery (which latter point is avowedly as-
sumed without demonstration); 2? that no
argument can be drawn from Moses in favour
of E. ; 3? that it does not prevent schisms but
breeds them &c. The second book opens
with a fine exordium on the Author's own
studies and aspirations — by way of apology
for engaging in the controversy — then pro-
ceeds to shew that Prelacy both in the spirit
& form is clean contrary to the religion of
the Gospel. — There are many fine ideas

26

THOMAS CARLYLE.

& fine delineations scattered thro'out; but
the thread of reasoning is not very easily fol-
lowed — partly perhaps because the whole
matter has long ago ceased to be a subject of
discussion or interest among men, & so to
be capable easily of arresting the attention
enough. It is only where we gain a brief
glimpse of the vast & sweeping ocean of
Milton's mind, with all its wonders, its curi-
ous fata morganas & stately navies & majes-
tic scenery (wretched figure !) that we feel a
complete participation in the beauties of the
composition. I never saw so eloquent a
person. What boundless store of metaphors !
What infinitude of thoughts ! What strong
& continuous fervour of soul! — Upon the
whole however I am only beginning to see
Milton : I must have him far more intimately
present to me, must feel as it were with his
great spirit — or it will never do. The men
Symmons & Hayley 1 praise him loudly
enough — but it is nearly all flattery. I like
Hayley better : he is better-natured & almost
as readable a kind of person as his rival. In-
deed neither of them pass in this last quality ;
& Symmons is a very egotistical, pragmatical,
verse-scanning, gerund-grinding pert senti-
mental little companion : I love him not.
" Axle of Discipline " (p. 202. — Milton no

1 Hayley's Life of Milton was first published in 1794,
Symmons's in 1806.

27

NOTE BOOK OF

leveller or Radical). — fine comparison about
the formation of a statue & that of any great
social improvement — both leave chips &
rubbish (p. 217) — Merchandize of Truth —
good (p. 219) — likening of the King to
Samson — good (p. 237). — bitter conclusion.

N. B. I am far too much of a critic — too
little of an artificer in all points ; always ask-
ing How ? or only saying Thus — No af-
fectation ! True feeling once — always true
partly.

The last two pamphlets of the year 1641
are "Animadversions on the Remonstrant's
defence of Smectymnuus " and the " Apology
for Sm." The first proceeds by way of ex-
tract and rejoinder; its aim is satire fully more
than argument. Milton's wit is sometimes
pungent, always unaffected, frequently not of
the finest. The Apology is written in a more
serious style; it contains many interesting
developments of the Author's own feelings
& purposes & history & hopes. It is written
with more equality than any of the former
treatises; and distinguished for a stately
march of eloquent ratiocination dressed out
in a rich and royal wardrobe of beautiful
metaphors & honourable staid enthusiasm. —
I am now at the "Divorce." (Must it 1 be

1 " It," that is, the book which Carlyle was thinking of
writing.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

sketches of English character generally, dur-
ing the Commonwealth? Containing por-
traits of Milton, Cromwell, Fox, Hyde, &c,
in the manner of De StaeFs Allemagne. The
spirit is willing — but ah ! the flesh — !)

Prynne's Histrio-Mastix (should see it).
Sir James Harrington. Who was Au[thor]
of " Oceana " ?

Foot soldiers gave "four-pence a-piece."
(Cromwell's life. 1 18) — poor fellows !

Sir J. Burrow's Anecdotes of Cromwell —
Dugdale, Bates, Harris.

Milton's " Areopagitica " — just perused
(6th May — after a long bout with Crom-
well's life, &c.) : it is a stately grave & dig-
nified oration in the manner of the ancients ;
contains a fair shew of candid argument,
generous feeling ; and is decked out with the
usual unrivalled richness of style, by which
this author is distinguished from all others.
What I desiderate in Milton is luminousness
of arrangement : he never reasons systemati-
cally, clearing all the ground before him as
he goes, and collecting all the scattered
brigades of his arguments to the final assault.
It is quite clear that he never studied mathe-
matics very deeply, or political economy —
or any subject merely logical. Even in this
Areopagitica splendid & powerful as it is, I
am clearly of opinion that Brougham or any
such person could discuss a similar subject

29

NOTE BOOK OF

with more practical effect in the way of per-
suasion, than Milton with all his noble elo-
quence. The perusal of these old giants,
and the infirm appearance of their most ven-
erable structures in the department of phi-
losophy & controversy ought surely to make
us humble in our estimate of human Reason.
How is it ? The art of Logic seems to come
& go & change like the fashion of clothes
from age to age !

As to this metaphorical talent, it is the first
characteristic of genius — tho' not the only
or an indispensable one, see Alfieri. It de-
notes an inward eye quick to perceive the
relations & analogies of things; a ready
memory to furnish them when occasion de-
mands; and a sense of propriety & beauty
to select what is best, from the immense store
so furnished. There is far far more in it than
this : but what — I have not time or power
to say.

The plan of this Areopagitica (not rigidly
adhered to) is fourfold — first that no worthy
community ever adhered to it ; 1 secondly that
reading many bad books is often useful;
thirdly that one might as well license fiddlers,
tailors &c. &c. as printers ; fourth the harm it
does. There is no great felicity in this arrange-
ment — but in executing it very very much.

1 " Ever adhered to it," that is, to the prohibition and
licensing of books.

30

THOMAS CARLYLE.

" Not he who takes up arms for cote and
conduct, 1 and his four nobles of Dunegelt."
There is the " eagle muing " again. There
is a highly sarcastic description of some
tradesman's "Religion," & some clergy's
preaching. What were precisely the things
which Milton, Cromwell &c. aimed at so in-
tensely ? This should be clearly ascertained
in limine, more clearly than hitherto.

[Thus far was written in August 1822 —
what a horrid gap has followed ! It is now
the 4th of March 1823 ; and what have I
been doing since ? Fearful question ! I
will think no more of it. Goethe says it is
always wrong to spend time in looking back
at the road we have travelled over; it either
disheartens us vainly, or puffs us up with a
conceit as vain : the best plan is whatever our
handfindeth to do, to do it quickly. So be it
then ! — But alas ! alas ! — ]

The old Dramatists, Massinger, Beaumont
and Fletcher &c. have disappointed me a
good deal. Their language has often an echo
of richest melody in it ; their characters (par-
ticularly of Rips and Blackguards in B & F.)
are sometimes well conceived and happily

l ' Cote ' or coat-money was a tax for clothing new
levies, imposed on the counties by the King. ' Conduct'
a tax for defraying the cost of moving or conducting
troops from place to place.

31

NOTE BOOK OF

presented ; there are in short many individual
beauties : but no one piece, so far as I recol-
lect, that I read to an end without disgust.
What horrid barbarism of taste ! what shock-
ing grossness of manners ! how little of gen-
uine philosophy or real insight into the depths
of human nature. Rich and royal Shake-
speare ! We should read his cotemporaries in
order rightly to prize him. — No this is not
the way for instructing myself! It is not.

What should I think of Goethe? His
Wilhelm Meister instructed, disgusted, moved
and charmed me. The man seems to under-
stand many of my own aberrations, " the na-
ture and causes " of which still remain mys-
terious to myself. I do feel that he is a wise
and great man. The last volume of his Life
is good also — gossipping,but full of intellect
and entertainment.

Lacretelle 1 is but a flashy superficial histo-
rian : he has nothing to tell me that I did
not know before. French chivalry — the
spirit of honour, and the everlasting Henri
Quatre — stuff — very wersh 2 stuff. It is really
curious to think how little knowledge there is
actually contained in these uncountable moun-
tains of books that men have written. A few

1 Author of many works on the history of France, born
1766, died 1835.
2 Wersh, Scottice, "insipid."

32

THOMAS CARLYLE.

general ideas, a few facts in the history of
natural phenomena, a few observations on the
properties of our minds, a few descriptions of
our feelings — the whole repeated in ten thou-
sand times ten thousand forms ; — this is what
we call philosophy and poetry. Alas ! I am
not yet past the threshold of instruction!
Gott hilf mir ! as Luther said.

These German critics are curious people.
Griiber, Wieland, Doering, Schiller shew cu-
riously beside our Edin h and Quarterly Re-
views. How much better are they? More
learned at any rate, more full of careful re-
flection, displaying greatly more culture than is
usual among such people this side the water.
I rather fear however there is more cry than
wool. I must read some of them any way.
Herder I have some good hopes of. Here
is a place extracted from his Nemesis. After
mentioning that he thinks the notion of the
soul was first suggested by the phenomena
of dreams, and preluding a little on the simi-
larity of Sleep and Death and their common
relation to Night, he proceeds :

" Beautiful allegory which the Former of
our nature, by the alternation of light and
darkness of sleeping and waking, has placed
in the feelings of the most unthinking man !
It seems as if He had wanted to give us a
daily emblem of the circuit of our destiny,
and had sent us daily to deliver it his mes-

3 33

NOTE BOOK OF

senger, Sleep the brother of Death. Softly
do the dark wings of this Ambassador sweep
towards us, and overshadow us with the clouds
of Night. The Genius sinks his torch, and
refreshes us, if the day dazzled our eyes, with
some drops of forgetfulness from his ambro-
sial horn. Tired with the glare of the young
Sun, we look to our old Mother Night as she
comes with her two children in her arms,
shrouded in a dark veil, but circled with a
far-glancing crown of Stars. Whilst on the
Earth she obscures the eyes of our body, she
awakens the eyes of our soul to wide pros-
pects of other worlds. But the views there
are but dreams for our earthly spirit; the
Mother of Sleep and Rest can give us nothing
more." — Is not this a little in the vein of
Hervey ? Yet there is something very sweet
in it. Herder writes a Prize-essay about the
origin of Speech — Another about the decay
of taste, from which Mad. de Stael appears
to have borrowed something.

In voller Jugend glanzen sie (the stars)

Da schon Jahrtausende vergangen :

Der Zeitenwechsel raubet nie

Das Licht von ihren Wangen.

Hier aber unter unserm Blick

Verfallt, vergeht, verschwindet alles :

Der Erde Pracht, der Erde Gluck

Droht eine Zeit des Falles —

. TX Herder

(Last line bad.)

34

THOMAS CARLYLE.

" But as to the place and hour of thy future
existence, fret not thyself O man; the Sun
which illuminates thy day measures out for
thee thy dwelling and thy earthly business,
and obscures for thee meanwhile all the stars
of Heaven. Soon as he goes down the world
appears in its wider form : the sacred Night
in which thou once layest shrouded up and
wilt again lie shrouded up, covers thy Earth
with shades but opens for thee in its stead
the shining books of Immortality in the sky.
There lie dwellings, worlds, and spaces."

" Unchanged they shine still young as ever
When thousand years have passed away;
And Time, the all-destroying, never
May smite their beauty with decay.

" But here while yet one views it

All fades and falls and mocks the eye ;
Earth's pomp — Destruction's foot pursues it,
To glance of joy is scowl of sorrow nigh.

" That Earth herself will be no more when
thou shalt still be, and in other dwelling-
places under other forms of existence shalt
enjoy thy God and his creation. Already
hast thou in this Earth enjoyed much good.
In it thou hast obtained that form of being,
in which as a son of Heaven it is allowed
thee to look around about thee and above.
Seek then to leave it in contentment, and
bless it as the green field where thou a child

35

NOTE BOOK OF

of Immortality wert wont to play, and as the
school where in sorrow and in joy thou wast
reared to manhood. Thou hast no farther
claim upon it; it has no farther claim on thee :
crowned with the cap of freedom and girt
with the girdle of Heaven, take up thy pil-
grim staff with cheerfulness, and go on thy
way." Herder.

Schiller born ioth Nov' 1759 at Marbach
on the Neckar in Wurtemberg (same year
with our Burns). His father a Regiment
surgeon made a prayer for the boy — see the
Life in his Werke. Well answered. — What
ivere the regulations in the school at Stutt-
gard? Who was Schubart 1 } (51) — p. 72?
Mad [am von] Wollzogen was Schiller's pro-
tectress when he fled. Philosophische Briefe
what vol. ? Vol. 4. — His sailing in the Elbe,
100. Went to Weimar, saw Herder and
Wieland, and was induced by the latter to
take part in the Teutsches Mercur. Invited
by the F[rau] Wollzogen to come and see
her, he went to Rudolstadt and saw his fu-
ture wife. First interview with Goethe 106.
Blarney about history. Garden at Jena 118.
Kant's phil. 120. Goethe's Naturgeschichte
unci Morphologie. Jean Paul's Aesthetic.
Schiller about to write an epic poem on Fred-

l Carlyle answers this question in a long note in the
appendix to his Life of Schiller, 1825.

36

THOMAS CARLYLE.

erick the Great — 124 Critical remarks —
Marries 130 — Garden 132 — Help from
Denmark 133 — Schiller's critique on Bur-
ger vol. 8. — The Xenienf little Epigrams —
are they to be found in S's Werke? Musen-
almanach? Horen? 158. Walks 164. Where
is Fr. SchlegePs Vorlesungen uber die neuere
Geschichte to be had? Schiller's triumph
at Leipzig 176 — Translate 193 &c. decent?
197 Must see the 8 vol. of W\erke~\ —

Morn, alas ! thy radiance tinges

A dead sepulchral stone.
And Eve thou throw'st thy crimson fringes

But o'er his slumber dark and lone.

Must see Jean Paul's Vorschule der Aes-
thetik.

"Schiller was tall in stature, of a strong
frame, yet withal very lean. His body ap-
peared visibly to be suffering under the keen
emotions of his spirit; but from his pale coun-
tenance, from his softly kindling (animated)
eye, there gleamed a still enthusiasm; and
his high free brow announced the deep
thinker. His cheeks and temples were hol-
low, the lips a little prominent, the chin
rather long and projecting. The colour of
his hair was inclined to reddish.

" In his external appearance there was lit-
tle to recommend him. In walking he kept
his eyes constantly bent on the ground ; he

37

NOTE BOOK OF

often failed to notice the salutations of ac-
quaintances that passed him, but on hearing
such he caught hastily at his hat and gave
his cordial Guten Tag."

His rather stiff and slow gait, and plain
apparel were not calculated to draw atten-
tion towards him; and there was farther in
his manner a sort of painful backwardness
visible in large companies, and especially at
court. In such situations he felt himself op-
pressed by a certain constraint, he saw out-
ward show made the ruling principle; and
both were at variance with the inmost feel-
ings of his nature.

It was in the circle of his family or of a
few intimate friends that he became unem-
barrassed, talkative, mirthful with all that
loved mirth. He enjoyed no little recrea-
tion in a club which had been formed at
Weimar, and for which he and Goethe com-
posed some social songs.

To the noisy and tumultuous pleasures of
life Schiller was nowise inclined. Among
the few public places which he used to fre-
quent the Playhouse was the only one on
which he bestowed any positive attention.
It was especially his pleasure and concern to
communicate instruction to the actors. The
first reading of the new pieces was always
gone thro' in his or Goethe's house; a cir-
cumstance which of itself must have had the

38

THOMAS CARLYLE.

most beneficial influence on many a player
of talents. Schiller indeed required much ;
he made strict demands on professors of the
art. Yet after the successful exhibition of
any of his later dramatic works, he was wont
to invite the more distinguished players to a
supper in the Town-house, where they had
merry songs, improvisoes, and all kinds of
jokes and diversion. 1

Schiller was in the highest degree benevo-
lent and the friend of men. His heart felt
the sorrows of another like his own. He
often said he wished for nothing more than
to see all men happy and contented with
their lot.

As a proof how upright his feelings were,
how far from petty self-interest, I may give
this example. A well-known Bookseller
hearing that Schiller was busied with Wallen-
stein waited upon him at Weimar, and of-
fered him 1 2 gold Carolins per sheet for the
property of the piece. The price was con-
siderably higher than Cotta of Tubingen,
with whom he was then treating on the same
subject, used to give; but Sc[hiller] did not for
that reason think of changing his publisher :
"Cotta" he said "deals honestly [solide) with
me, and I with him," and sent the Bookseller

1 Among other things the player Genast used at S's
request to recite the Capuchin's speech out of Wallen-
stein. T C.

39

NOTE BOOK OF

away without even the hope of any future
trade with him.

Schiller has delineated himself with very
striking correctness. " The childlike charac-
ter " he observes " which genius expresses in
its works, it shews also in its morals and private
life. It is bashful, for nature is ever so ; but
it has not the art of concealment, for conceal-
ment is taught of perversion alone. It is
wise, for nature never can be otherwise ; but
it is not crafty, for that can by Art alone be. It
is true to its character and inclinations, but
not so much because it walks by principles as
because nature with all her aberrations ever
returns to her former aim, ever brings back
her original desire. It is prudent, nay timid,
for genius ever remains a secret to itself; but
it is not anxious, not knowing the dangers of
the path it treads. We know little of the pri-
vate life of the greatest geniuses ; but even
that little as it has been transmitted to us
proves the truths here stated." *

Schiller 2 seems to have been a very worthy
character, possessed of great talents, and for-
tunate in always finding means to employ

1 From ' ' Naive und Sentimentalische Dichtung. " The
passage was much better translated by Carlyle in his
Life of Schiller, 1825, p. 299.

2 The following passage is cited by Mr. Froude, in his
Life of Carlyle, Vol. i, p. 196, but inaccurately ; for ex-
ample, instead of "Schiller seems to have been," he
prints, "Schiller was."

40

THOMAS CARLYLE.

them in the attainment of worthy ends. The
pursuit of the Beautiful, the representing of
it in suitable forms, and the diffusion of the
feelings arising from it, operated as a kind of
religion in his soul. He talks in some of his
essays about the Aesthetics being a necessary
means of improvement among political socie-
ties : his efforts in this cause accordingly
not only satisfied the restless activity, the
desire of creating and working upon others,
which forms the great want of an elevated
mind, but yielded a sort of balsam to his
conscience ; he viewed himself as an Apostle
of the sublime. Pity that he had no bet-
ter way of satisfying it ! A play-house shews
but indifferently as an arena for the Moral-
ist: it is even inferior to the synod of the
theologian. One is tired to death with his
and Goethe's palabra about the nature of the
fine arts. Did Shakespeare know aught of
the aesthetic ? Did Homer ? Kant's philos-
ophy has a monstrously gigantic appearance
at a distance — enveloped in clouds and dark-
ness, shadowed forth in types and symbols
of unknown and fantastic derivation, there is
an apparatus and a flourishing of drums and
trumpets and a tumultuous Marktschreyerei
as if all the Earth were going to renew its
youth; and the esoterics are equally allured
by all this pomp and circumstance, and re-
pelled by the hollowness and airy nothing-

4i

NOTE BOOK OF

ness of the ware which is presented to them.
Any of the results which have been made in-
telligible to us turn out to be like Dryden in
the Battle of the Books, a helmet of rusty iron
large as a kitchen-pot and within it a head
little bigger than a nut. 1 What is SchlegeFs
great solution of the mystery of life — " the
strife of necessity against free-will " ? 2 Noth-
ing earthly but the old, old story that all men
find it difficult to get on in the world ; and
that one never can get all his humour out!
They pretend to admit that nature gives
people dim intimations of true beauty and
just principles in Art ; but the bildende Kunst-
ler and the richtende z ought to investigate the
true foundations of these obscure intimations
and set them fast on the basis of reason.
Stuff and nonsense ? I fear it is. The people
made finer pieces of workmanship when there
was not a critic among them. Just as people
do finer actions when there was no theory
of the moral sentiments among them. Na-
ture is the sure guide in all cases ; and per-

l Carlyle changes Swift's imagery. " The Helmet was
nine times too large for the Head, which appeared Situ-
ate far in the hinder Part, even like the Lady in a Lob-
ster, or like a mouse under a canopy of State, or like a
shrivled Beau from within the Pent-house of a modern
Perewig." The Battle of the Books, 1704, p. 263.

2 For "free-will" Mr. Froude prints "the will," and
five lines below, for "dim intimations " he substitutes
" true intimations."

3 " The artist and the critic."

WCt t»ui %UJ^ fifM <hu»*_ fr*fyVUt*Vt ®S **—
ksK- ^W. i^ <Lj/ Uv^ *fiA4it^(
I fir 3<MK> yfi+r4 t c^ y^ ^ *^_

*" ' ***** 1$2 ^^CwW^^ it ^^r
'frXCjvJtk e«ys*> ^t^u^ ^aj2^

THOMAS CARLYLE.

haps the only requisite is that we have
judgement enough to apply the sentiment im-
planted in us without our effort to the more
complex circumstances that will meet us more
frequently as we advance in culture, or move
in a society more artificial. Poor silly sons
of Adam ! you have been prating on these
things for 2 or 3000 years, and you have not
advanced a single hair's breadth towards the
conclusion. Poor fellows! and poorer me!
that take the trouble to repeat such insipidities
and truisms.

But what if I do not prodesse ? Why then
terar still, — dum I cannot help it ! This is
the end and beginning of all philosophy —
known even to Singleton the Blacksmith —
" we must just do the best we can, boy ! "
Oh most lame and impotent conclusion.

Welch eine Lage ! von tausend angstlichen
Trieben herumgejagt, von Bediirfnissen,
Thatigkeiten, zu wirken gefodert, gefodert,
gefodert ; und kann nichts thun ! Armseli-
ger Narr! Ich mochte tollwerden — und
was denn ? Schweige ! 1

Herder hated the new philosophy and wrote
against it bitterly. Wieland did the same,
for it shattered into powder the gim-crack

1 " What a condition ! driven by a thousand disquiet-
udes, by necessities, by actualities, obliged to work,
obliged, obliged, and can do nothing! Poor fool! I
am ready to go mad — and what then ? Silence ! "

45

NOTE BOOK OF

palace of French rationality which he had
been chopping and putting together all his
life for Teutschland. Goethe was wiser than
either; he was clear for "letting it have its
time as everything has." This was right, old
Goethe, and I respect thee for the solid judge-
ment of this saying. Herder was not de-
terred by the terror of novelty, or yet by too
strong a rational faculty, too keen a judgement.
He believed in & greatly prized the scull-
doctrine of Df Gall ! But Gall had borrowed
his fundamental ideas from Herder's Ideen
zur Phil. — there it lay ! — and the new phil-
osophy was driving fiercely butting like a
wild Bull against the orthodox creed of Ger-
many. The poor divinity-students returned
from the prelections of Fichte and Reinhold
at Jena full of the most undigestible concep-
tions ; and appeared before the Consistoriums
in a state approaching to derangement, and
like deranged people frequently out-argued
the old stagers who believed orthodoxly.
Great scandal thereby; and severe repre-
hensions. One young divine shot himself at
Weimar. Fichte appears actually to have
been a metaphysical atheist. I wish I fully
understood the philosophy of Kant ! Is it a
chapter in the history of human folly or the
brightest in the history of h. wisdom ? Or
of both mixed ? And in what degree ?
That distinction of Coleridge's (which he

46

THOMAS CARLYLE.

has borrowed or may have borrowed from
Woltmann) about talent and genius is com-
pletely blarney, — futile, very futile. — I am
tired and stupid and almost red-mud. 1

Farewell my books & pens and papers
My studies great and small !

Most pitiful sickly farthing tapers
Are the sciences one and all.

Oh once your flaring light inspir'd me
I certainly thought you moons or suns

And I ran to catch what somehow fir'd me
As many a crack-brained ninny runs.

And when at length nigh broken-winded
I approached thro' many a glarry^ way

The glim was nearly douced^ or I was blinded
I strained my eyes, knew nought to think or
say.

Forsooth ye are most worthy rare devices

How clearly ye tell us all we know !
And where we know not, still your art supplies
us
With excellent words and terms to come &
go-

1 Distracted.

2 Miry.

3 The light was nearly sunk.

47

NOTE BOOK OF

Oh that the old one had you to make
A kirk and mill of if so inclined !

And this accursed queasy grumbling stomach
Would cease to trouble an ignorant mind !

March, 1823. Andrew Macnay. 1

Poet should preach or poetize for his age,
should elevate and beautify the ideas which
are current in it : be Zeiiburger as well as
Staatsbiirger. — [Schiller] Review of Burger.

" What went before and what will follow me
I look at as at two black imperforable cur-
tains, which hang down at the two extremi-
ties of human life, and which no living man
has yet drawn aside. Many hundreds of
generations already stand before them with
their torches and guess and guess about what
lies behind. Many see their own shadows
the forms of their passions enlarged and put
in motion on the curtain of futurity; they
shrink in terror at their own image. Poets,
philosophers and founders of states have
painted it with their dreams — more smiling
or more dark as the sky above them was
gloomy or cheerful; and their pictures de-
ceive at a distance. Many jugglers too make
profit of this universal curiosity, and by

1 On the margin against the preceding verses the fol-
lowing note is written: "At Mrs. Wilkie's, near Pilrig
Street, Leith walk; I still dimly remember the night.
(May, 1866!)—"

48

THOMAS CARLYLE.

their strange disguisings ( Vermummungen)
have set the outstretched Fantasy in astonish-
ment. (But) a deep silence reigns behind
this curtain; none once within it will an-
swer those he has left without; all you can
hear is a hollow echo of your question, as if
you shouted into a chasm. To the other
side of this curtain we are all bound, and
men catch it with shuddering, uncertain who
may stand behind to receive them, quid sit id,
quod tantum morituri vident. 1 Some incredu-
lous persons there have been who maintained
that this curtain but made a fool of men, and
that nothing could be seen because nothing
was behind it ; but to convince these persons,
the rest pushed them hastily behind." Schiller,
Geisterseher. [Vierter Brief.] IV. 350.

As gentle shepherd in sweet eventide
When ruddy Phoebus gins to welk in west
High on a hill, his flock to vewen wide,
Marks which do bite their hasty supper best.
Faery Queen B. 1. c. 1. [st. 23.]

A little lowly hermitage it was
Down in a dale hard by a forest's side,
Far from resort of people that did pass
In travel to and fro : a little wyde (distant ?)
There was a holy chapel edified,

1 ' What that may be which only those see who are
about to die.'

4 49

NOTE BOOK OF

Wherein the hermit duly wont to say
His holy things each morn and eventide :
Thereby a chrystal stream did gently play,
Which from a sacred fountain welled forth

away. (Do.) [st. 34.]

Error (battle with) graphical but beastly —
Morpheus' establishment is well done. " Bold
bad man " is Spenser's — it might have been
anybody's.

By this the northern waggoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre
That was in ocean waves yet never wet.
But firm is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that in the wide deep wandring arre:
And chearefull chaunticlere with &c.

B. i. c. ii. [st. 1.]

At last the golden orientall gate
Of greatest Heaven gan to open fayre ;
And Phcebus fresh as bridegroom to his mate,
Came dauncing forth shaking his deawie hayre
And hurld his glistring beams thro' gloomy
ayre B. i. c. v. [st. 2.]

This Spenser pleaseth me well : he is a
dainty body as ever I met with.

Hactenus in May 1823 : it is now Novem-
ber; 1 six weary months have passed away,

l 3 Nov 1 ; 1823. (at Kinnaird ! with Bullers.) [T. C.
1866.] Since the spring of 1822 Carlyle had remained
in Edinburgh as tutor of Charles and Arthur Buller. In
May, 1823, the Buller family removed to Kinnaird House,

50

THOMAS CARLYLE.

another portion from my span of being ; and
here am I, in a wet dreary night, at Kinnaird,
with no recollections or acquisitions to fill
up that space with; but the recollection of
agonized days and nights, and the acquisition
of a state of health worse than it ever was !
My time ! my time ! My peace and activity !
My hopes and purposes ! Where are they ?
I could read the curse of Ernulphus, 1 or some-
thing twenty-times as fierce, upon myself and
all things earthly. What will become of me ?
Happiness! Tophet must be happier than
this : or they — But basta / It is no use talk-
ing. Let me get on with Schiller; then with
Goethe. " They that meaned at a gowden
gown gat aye the sleeve." I shall not even
get the listing. — These remarks are interest-
ing to read some months after date: I will
continue them . Schiller is in the wrong vein. 2
Laborious, partly affected, meagre, bombastic :
too often it strives by lofty words to hide
littleness of thought. Would I were done
with it! Oh Carlyle if ever thou become
happy ', think on these days of pain and dark-
ness; and thou wilt join trembling with thy
mirth! Forth! Forth! 3 d November 1823.

a beautiful place near Dunkeld on the Tay, and here Car-
lyle resided with them till, in 1824, they removed to Lon-
don. See Life, Vol. i. ; Early Letters, Vol. ii.

ISee Tristram Shandy, Book iii. c. 11.

2 The Life of Schiller which he was now engaged in
writing.

51

NOTE BOOK OF

List of French books — to be read it ever
I have leisure and fall in with them. I tran-
scribe them from the back of an old Recipe
(the Bumming Doctor's — which I recollect
well) about three years of age. Some one or
two I have read since then, and omit here.
I suppose they must originally have been
taken from Chenevix' Articles in the Edin r
Review ; but I am not certain.

Malebranche, Recherche de la verite\

Condillac, La Logique.

Bonnet, Psychologic

De Gerando, Des Connaissances humaines.

De Tracy (on Grammar, Ideology &c.)

Garat ? Charron ? La Mothe Le Vayer ?

Nicole, Essais de Morale.

St Lambert (weak I understand). Principes
de morale chez toutes les nations.

Servan, Dupaty, Calonne, Sieyes, Lebrun,
Roederer, Marbois, Neucours, Gamier, Per-
reau, Bexon, Bourguignon, Pastoret, Lacre-
telle, De Bonald.

These are marked u polit."'m the List: except
Sieyes and Lacretelle and Calonne I never
before heard their names, and know nothing
about them. Lacretelle I have read one
work of, the Religious Wars: it is a poor
flashy performance, readable because its sub-
ject is interesting ; and the author tho' half
a puppy has been among thinkers in the 19th
century.

52

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Cardinal de Retz. M6moires

Brantdme.

Froissart (this I should like best)

Seyssel (who is he ?) Velly, Mezeray.

Vertot, D'Orl6ans, Dubos, Anquetil (bad)

Rulhiere, Thouret, Royou (short hist, of
France)

I should also like to have Montaigne ; the vol.
of his Essais that I read was very good — at
least very curious. — Here are some rhymers:

Marivaux, Malherbe, Balzac, Voiture, Scu-
deri, Scarron, &c. I have long wished to
read Grammont : the parts of it known to
me are excellent. What of Mad. de La
Fayette, her Princesse de Cleves? Abb6
Prevost his Cleveland ? Laclos ? Louvet ?
Pigault-le-Brun ? — These I fear are but of
the small deer I have too long been used to.
There is something in a weak or dull book
very nauseous to me. Reading is a weariness
of the Flesh; after reading and studying
about two scores of good books, there is no
new thing whatever to be met with in the
generality of libraries ; repetitions a thousand
times repeated of the same general idea;
feelings, opinions and events — all is what we
might anticipate. No man without Themis-
tocles' gift of forgetting can possibly spend
his days in reading. 1 Generally about the age

l" Vain was the prayer of Themistocles for a talent
of Forgetting." Sartor Resartus, Book i. ch. viii. The

53

NOTE BOOK OF

of five and twenty he should begin to put the
little knowledge he has acquired (it can be
but little) from books to some practical use.
If I could write y that were my practical use.
But alas! alas! Oh! Schiller what secret
hadst thou for creating such things as Max
and Thekla when thy body was wasting with
disease ? I am well nigh done I think. To die
is hard enough at this age ; to die by inches
is very hard. But I will not, tho' all things
human and divine are against me, I will not.

Schiller Part II. is off to London three
weeks ago : it was very bad. Part III. I am
swithering to begin : would it were finished.
I spent ten days (wretchedly) in Edinf and
Had n ; I was consulting doctors, who made
me give up my dear nicotiana and take to
mercury. I sometimes think I shall recover.
December 14th.

I am to write letters and then begin Schil-
ler. May God bless all my Friends — my
poor Mother at the head of them ! Oh it
sometimes comes over me like the shadow of
Death — the thought that we are all parting
from one another — each moving his several
his destined inevitable way, Fate driving us
on, inexorable dead relentless Fate ! No de-
liverance ? (mil dem Fusse stampfend). 1 No

saying of Themistocles is reported by Cicero, De Ora-
tore, ii. 74.
1 " Stamping with the foot."

54

THOMAS CARLYLE.

help ? Alas poor sons of Adam ! But no
more of this.

31st December The year is closing; this

1823. time eight and twenty

years I was a child of three

weeks old lying sleeping in my mother's

bosom.

Oh little did my mither think

That day she cradled me,
The lands that I should travel in
The death I was to die. i

Another hour and 1823 is with the years
beyond the flood. What have I done to
mark the course of it ? Suffered the pangs
of Tophet almost daily, grown sicker and
sicker, alienated by my misery certain of my
friends, and worn out from my own mind a
few remaining capabilities of enjoyment, re-
duced my world a little nearer the condition
of a bare haggard desart, where peace and
rest for me is none. Hopeful youth Mr. C. !
Another year or two and it will do ; another

1 To this, Carlyle in 1866 appended the words " Ex-
tract by Burns —first came to me thro' T. Murray."

The stanza is from the beautiful ballad, of much dis-
cussed origin, known as " Mary Hamilton," or " The
Queen's Marie." See Child's English and Scottish
Popular Ballads, Vol. iii. p. 379 and Vol. v. p. 246. " We
first hear of the Scottish Ballad," says Professor Child,
"in 1790, when a stanza is quoted in a letter of Robert
Burns." The letter is to Mrs. Dun lop, 25 th Jan. 1790.
See Currie's Works of Burns 1800, ii. 290.

55

NOTE BOOK OF

year or two and thou wilt wholly be the caput
mortuum of thy former self, a creature igno-
rant, stupid, peevish, disappointed, broken-
hearted ; the veriest wretch upon the surface
of the globe. My curse seems deeper and
blacker than that of any man : to be immured
in a rotten carcass, every avenue of which is
changed into an inlet of pain; till my intellect
is obscured and weakened, and my head and
heart are alike desolate and dark. How have
I deserved this ? Or is it merely a dead in-
exorable Fate that orders these things, caring
no jot for merit or demerit, crushing our poor
mortal interests among its ponderous ma-
chinery, and grinding us and them to dust
relentlessly ? I know not j shall I ever know ?
" Then why don't you kill yourself Sir ? Is
there not arsenic ? Is there not ratsbane of
various kinds, and hemp and steel ? " Most
true, Sathanas, all these things are: but it
will be time enough to use them when I have
lost the game, which I am as yet but losing.
You observe Sir I have still a glimmering of
hope; and while my friends {my friends, my
Mother, Father, brothers and sisters) live,
the duty of not breaking their hearts would
still remain to be performed when hope had
utterly fled. For which reasons, even if
there were no other (which however I be-
lieve there are), the benevolent Sathanas will
excuse me. I do not design to be a suicide:

56

THOMAS CARLYLE.

God in Heaven forbid! That way I was
never tempted. 1

But where is the use of going on with this ?
I am not writing like a reasonable man : if I
am miserable, the more reason there is to
gather my faculties together, and see what
can be done to help myself. I want health,
health, health. On this subject I am becom-
ing quite furious: my torments are greater
than I am able to bear. If I do not soon re-
cover I am miserable for ever and ever. They
talk of the benefit of ill-health in a moral
point of view. 2 I declare solemnly without
exaggeration that I impute nine tenths of my

l"From Suicide," says Teufelsdrockh, "a certain
aftershine (Nachschein) of Christianity withheld me:
perhaps, also, a certain indolence of character ; for was
not that a remedy I had at any time within reach ? "

Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. vii.

2 In later years Carlyle wrote, in recalling this period
of his life, " Other things might have made me hopeful
and cheerful as beseemed my years, — had not Dyspepsia,
with its base and unspeakable miseries, kept such fatal
hold of me, which, perhaps, needed only a wise Doctor,
too, as I found afterwards, when too late ! Heavy, grind-
ing, and continual has that burden lain on me ever since
to this hour, and will lie ; but I must not complain of it,
either ; it was not wholly a curse, as I can sometimes
recognize, but perhaps a thing needed, and partly a
blessing, though a stern one, and bitter to flesh and
blood." Early Letters, ii. 114, note. See also in regard to
his sufferings from dyspepsia, Reminiscences, ii. 107, no.
113, 115, 140. The evil was augmented by unwise doc-
tors, who dosed him with active but ineffectual drugs,
weakening his health without remedying the specific
trouble.

57

NOTE BOOK OF

present wretchedness, and rather more than
nine tenths of all my faults to this infernal
disorder in the stomach. If it were once
away I think I could snap my fingers in
the face of all the world. The only good of
it is the friends it tries for us and endears
to us ! Oh ! there is a charm in the true
affection that suffering cannot weary, that
abides by us in the day of fretfulness and
dark calamity — a charm which almost makes
amends for misery. Love to my friends —
Alas ! I may almost say relations ! — is now
almost the sole religion of my mind.

In a month we quit this place ; they x with
a view to amusement, I in the hope of get-
ting Meister printed. 2 I have better hopes of
Meister than I had ; tho' still they are very

1 The Bullers.

2 In the spring of 1823 Carlyle had engaged with an
Edinburgh bookseller to translate Wilhelm Meister.
In a bit of reminiscences, printed in his Early Letters,
ii. p. 201, note, Carlyle, describing his life at Kinnaird
House, says : " I lodged and slept in the old mansion, a
queer, old-fashioned, snug enough, entirely secluded
edifice, sunk among trees, about a gunshot from the new
big House ; hither I came to smoke about twice or thrice
in the daytime ; had a good oak-wood fire at night, and
sat in a seclusion, in a silence not to be surpassed above
ground. I was writing Schiller, translating Meister ;
my health in spite of my diligent riding, grew worse and
worse ; thoughts all wrapt in gloom, in weak dispiritment
and discontent, wandering mournfully to my loved ones
far away ; letters to and from, it may well be supposed,
were my most genial solacement. At times, too, there
was something of noble in my sorrow, in the great soli-
tude among the rocking winds, but not often."

58

THOMAS CARLYLE.

faint. Schiller P. III. I began just three
nights ago. I absolutely could not sooner.
These drugs leave me scarcely the conscious-
ness of existence. They take away all am-
bition, all wish for aught beyond deep sleep
if that might by any means be made to fall
upon me. I am scribbling not writing Schil-
ler : my mind will not catch hold of it ; I
skim it, do as I will, and I am anxious as
possible to get it off my hands. It will not
do for publishing separately : it is not in my
natural vein. I wrote a very little of it to-
night, and then went and talked ineptitudes
at the house. Also there is mercurial powder
in me, and a gnawing pain over all the or-
gans of digestion — especially in the pit and
left side of the stomach. Let this excuse the
wild absurdity above.

Half past eleven ! The silly Denovan * is
coming down (at least so I interpreted his
threat) with punch or wishes ; which curtails
the few reflections this mercury might still
leave it in my power to make. To make
none at all will perhaps be as well. It ex-
hibits not an interesting but a true picture of
my present mood — stupid, unhappy, by fits
wretched, but also dull, dull and very weak.

Now fare thee well old twenty-three !
No power, no art can thee retain

1 Probably the butler of the Bullers.
59

NOTE BOOK OF

Eternity will roll away — Eternity !
And thou wilt never come again.

And welcome thou, young twenty-four,
Thou bringer to men of joy and grief!
Whate'er thou bringest, in sufferings sore
The patient heart in faith will hope relief.

— Here thou art by Jove! Denny is not
come. Good night! "To whom?"

There is a good explanation of the aequo pul-
satpede in Swinburne's travels : it seems credit-
ors and other aggrieved persons still signify
their determined hostility and resolution to be
avenged by kicking at the door of the debtor.

I have sometimes been reading BoswelPs
Life of Johnson lately : Johnson talked well
but not more wisely than a common man;
at least very little more. Also his conversa-
tion is only intellectually felicitous; he has
no strange ideas to shew, no curious modes
of feelings; he only does well what every one
can do in some way. I figure Goethe or
even Coleridge to be more curious persons.
Poor Goethe is " again dangerously ill " the
papers say. Basta /

7th January Such three days I have had
[1824]. with the introduction to Schil-
ler / — and then to reject it
all ! I must insert some of it here to-mor-

60

THOMAS CARLYLE.

row, for it cost me labour, and should not be
totally lost. To-night I am going to write to
Had"*

Last Sunday came the Times newspaper
with the commencement of Schiller Part II
extracted. So Walter 2 thought it on this side
zero ! I believe this is about the first com-
pliment (most slender as it is) that ever was
paid me, by a person who could have no in-
terest in hoodwinking me. I am very weak : it
kept me cheerful for an hour; even yet I some-
times feel it. — Certainly no one ever wrote with
such tremendous difficulty as I do. Shall I
learn to " write with ease " — ever learn ?

I have got half a new idea to-day about
history: it is more than I can say for any
day the last six months.

Confessio TiDKi of Wallensteins Jager {2$)

purposed

I mean to be quite easy and gay,

To see something new on each [new] day,

In joys of the sharing

To the moment merrily trusting,

[On the past or the future] not thinking or caring

No thought on the past or the future casting.

So, look, to the Kaiser I sold my bacon

And by him let the charge of all needful be
taken

lTo Miss Welsh, at Haddington.
2 The proprietor of the Times.

NOTE BOOK OF

mid thickest

Order me on to the whistling cannon shot

Rhine's wild roaring tide

Over the red and roaring Rhine,
The second man must go to pot, —

not minding a jot

I mount and ride without loss of time.

d'ye see

But farther I humbly beg and pray,

you'd let me be

That in other things I may have my way.

Marketenderin.

Cousin ! since then I 've been wide and far,
To-day we come, to-morrow we go,

the rough rude

As it happens the besom of war

Pleases to shove us

Shakes one and sweeps one to and fro

Wallenstein.

Our life was but a battle and a march,

And like the wind's blast, never-resting,
homeless,

We stormed across the war-convulsed earth.

KUrassier —

This sword of ours is no plough or spade
You cannot delve or reap with the iron blade

falls

For us there springs no seed, no cornfield
grows

62

THOMAS CARLYLE.

The soldier no home nor kindred knows,
Must wander over the face of the earth,
Must warm his hands at another's hearth,

From must onward roam

To the pomp of towns he bids adieu,

In the village green with its cheerful game,

laughing times of

In the vintage [time] or harvest-home,
No part or lot can the soldier claim.

In the place of goods of worth or pelf

Tell me then what goods or worth he has

What has he unless

If the soldier cease to honour himself?

naught to call

Leave him nothing of his own, what wonder

fellow

The creature should burn and kill and
plunder ?

VERSES TO MRS. BULLER ON SEEING
HER IN A HIGHLAND DRESS—

By Dr. John Leyden.

[From a copy in Mrs. B.'s handwriting —

Jan? 1824.]

That bonnet's pride, that tartan's flow,
My soul with wild emotion fills ;

Methinks I see in fancy's glow
A princess from the land of hills.

O for a Fairy's hand to trace

The rainbow tints that rise to view !

That slender form of sweeter grace
Than e'er Malvina's poet drew !

63

NOTE BOOK OF

Her brilliant eye, her streaming hair,
Her skin's soft splendour to display

The finest pencil must despair
Till it can paint the solar ray.

Calcutta, 1 8 1 1.

It must be night ere Friedland's star will beam. "

21st September, Hoddam Hill. 1 A hiatus
1825. valde deflendus / Since

the last line was written,
what a wandering to and fro, how many
sad vicissitudes of despicable suffering and
inaction have I undergone ! This little
book and the desk that carries it have
passed a summer and winter in London,
since I last opened it; and I their foolish
owner have roamed about the brick-built
Babylon, the sooty Brummagem, and Paris
the Vanity-fair of our modern world! My
mood of mind is changed : is it improved ?
Weiss nicht. 2 This stagnation is not peace,
or it is the peace of Galgacus' Romans : ubi

1 A little Farm, not far from Ecclefechan, with a cot-
tage for dwelling-house where " at noon-day (26th May,
1825) I established myself, set up my Books, and bits of
implements and Lares ; and took to doing German Ro-
mance as my daily work." " This year at Hoddam Hill
. . . lies now like a not ignoble russet-coated Idyll in
my memory ; one of the quietest on the whole, and per-
haps the most triumphantly important of my life."
Reminiscences , ii. 178.

2 " I know not."

64

THOMAS CARLYLE.

solihidinem faciimt pacem appellatit. 1 How
difficult it is to free one's mind from cant ;
how very seldom are the principles we act on
clear to our own reason ! Of the great nos-
trums " forgetfulness of self " and "humbling
of vanity," it were better therefore to say
nothing: in my speech concerning them I
overcharge the impression they have made
on me, for my Conscience like my sense of
Pain or Pleasure has grown dull, and I
secretly desire to compensate for laxity of
feeling by intenseness of describing. How
much of these great nostrums is the product
of necessity ? Am I like a sorry hack con-
tent \.o feed on heather while rich clover seems
to lie around it at a little distance, because in
struggling to break the tether it has almost
hanged itself? O that I could " go out of
the body to philosophize ! " That I could
even feel as of old the glory and magnificence
of things till my own little me {mein kleifies
Ich) were swallowed up and lost in them !
(partly cant ! ) But I cannot, I cannot ! Shall
I ever more ? Gott weiss. At present I am
but an abgerissenes Glied t a limb torn off from
the family of Man, excluded from activity,
with Pain for my companion, and Hope that
comes to all rarely visiting me, and what
is stranger rarely desired with vehemence!

1" Where they make a solitude they call it peace."
Tacitus, Life of Agricola, c. 30.

5 6 S

NOTE BOOK OF

Unhappy man in whom the body has gained
mastery over the soul ! Inverse Sensualist, not
drawn into the rank of beasts by pleasure, but
driven into it by pain ! Hush ! Hush ! Per-
haps this is the Truce which weary Nature has
conquered for herself to re-collect her scat-
tered strength! Perhaps like an Eagle (or a
Goose) she will " mew her mighty youth "
and fly against the sun, or at least fish pad-
docks with equanimity, like other birds of a
similar feather; and no more lie among the
pots, winged, maimed and plucked, doing
nothing but chirp like a chicken in the coop
for the livelong day. " Jook and let the
jaw gae by," 1 my pretty Sir: when this soli-
tude becomes intolerable to you, it will be
time enough to quit it for the dreary blank
which society and the bitterest activity have
hitherto afforded you. You deserve consid-
erable pity Mr. C. j and likewise considerable
contempt. Heaven be your comforter my
worthy Sir, you are in a promising condition
at this present; sinking to the bottom, yet
laid down to sleep ; Destruction brandishing
his sword above you, and you quietly desir-
ing him to take your life but spare your rest !
Gott hilf Ihnen / — Now for Tieck and his
Runenberg : but first one whiff of generous
narcotic ! How gladly " we love to wander
on the plain with the summit in our eye ! "

l " Duck, and let the wave go by."
66

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Ach Du meine Einzige, die Du mich liebst
und Dich an mir anschmiegst, warum bin Ich
Dir wie ein gebrochenes Rohr ! — Sollst Du
niemals glucklich werden ! Wo bist Du heute
Nacht? Mogen Friede und Liebe und
Hoffnung deine Gefahrten seyn ! Leb' wohl ! 1

3d December Comley Bank. Married!
1826. Married! — Aber still da-

von! 2 — and of a thousand
other things. I am for business. 3

Read Sir T. Browne's Religio Medici and
Urne Burial lately ; his Vulgar Errors I had
already seen at Kew. The Urne Burial I
think (with little C. Lamb) the best; tho'
much of it is little edifying at this time of
day, or perhaps rather to this sort of reader.
Disquisitions on all imaginable modes of
sepulture; of mummies, bones, cremation,
inhumation, &c, &c, not without here and
there a straggling tone of pathetic feeling, or
a gleam of philosophic thought. But the
conclusion of the Essay is absolutely beauti-
ful. A still, elegiac mood ; so soft, so deep,

1 "Ah, mine only one, thou that lovest me and clingest
to me, why am I but as a broken reed for thee. Art
thou never to be happy ! Where art thou to-night ?
May Peace and Love and Hope be with thee ! Farewell ! ' '

2 " But of that no words."

3 Carlyle's marriage had taken place on October 17 ;
and he and his wife were established at Comley Bank, a
house in the northwestern suburbs of Edinburgh, where
they lived till they went to Craigenputtock, in 1828.

67

NOTE BOOK OF

so solemn and tender, like the song of some
departed Saint flitting faint under the ever-
lasting canopy of Night ! An echo of deep-
est meaning from "the great and famous
nations of the Dead." Browne must have
been a good man. What was his history ?
What the real form of his character? for as
yet I see him only thro' a glass darkly. " Abiit
ad p lures, he hath gone to the greater num-
ber." Life of him by Dr. Johnson. Qiialis?

Two infants reasoning in the womb about
the nature of this life might be no " unhand-
some " type of two men reasoning here about
the life that is to come. 1

Lux Jovi, tenebrae Oreo, 2 one stroke up,
the other stroke down.

These bones have slept quietly " beneath
the drums and trampling of three conquests." 3

The Quincunx I like worst : full of learn-
ing, but of a kind little to my taste, tho' I
blame not the taste of it in him. The last
chapter is better than all the rest. " The
hunters are up in Persia " 4 has been quoted

1 "A dialogue between two infants in the womb con-
cerning the state of this world, might handsomely illus-
trate our ignorance of the next." Urn Burial, ch. 4.

2 " Light unto Pluto is darkness unto Jupiter." Gar-
den of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial Lozenge, ch. 4. " Lux
Oreo, tenebrae Jovi ; tenebrae Oreo, lux Jovi." Hippo-
crates de Dieta ; S. Hevelii Selenographia. These refer-
ences are from Wilkin's note on the passage in his edi-
tion of Browne's Works, iii. 436. 3 Urn Burial, ch. 5.

4 " To keep our eyes open longer were but to act our

68

THOMAS CARLYLE.

already in some Magazine. Browne stands
midway between a poet and an orator.

His Religio Medici is most readable of any,
and indeed contains many true and praise-
worthy things; only he gives himself fax too
good and orthodox a character, thereby leav-
ing us no refuge but to envy him in despair
of doing so likewise ; or, what will be a more
common resource, to disbelieve in and reject
him as a moral dandy.

I should like to know more of him ; but I
ought to understand his time better also.
What are we to make of this old English Lit-
erature ? Touches of true beauty are thickly
scattered over these works; great learning,
solidity of thought ; but much, much that now
cannot avail any longer. Certainly the spirit
of that age was far better than that of ours ;
is the form of our literature an improvement
intrinsically, or only a form better adapted to
our actual condition? I often think, the
latter. Difficulty of speaking on these points
without affectation. We know not what to
think, and would gladly think something
very striking and pretty.

Sir W. Raleigh's Advice to his Son; worldly-
wise, solid, sharp, farseen — The motto : " No-
thing like getting on / " — Of Burleigh's Ad-
vice the motto is the same ; the execution, if

Antipodes. The huntsmen are up in America, and they
are already past their first sleep in Persia." Garden of
Cyrus, ad fin.

69

NOTE BOOK OF

I rightly remember, is in a gentler and more
loving spirit. Walsingham's Manual^ I did
not read. These men of Elizabeth's are like
so many Romans or Greeks. Were we to
seek for the Caesars, the Ciceros, the Pericles',
Alcibiades' &c. of England, we should find
them nowhere if not in that era. Wherefore
are these things hid ? Or worse than hid,
presented in false tinsel colours, originating
in affected ignorance and producing affected
ignorance ? Would I knew rightly about it,
and could present it rightly to others ! For
hear alas ! this mournful truth, nor hear it with
a frown : 2 There, in that old age, lies the o?ily
true poetical literature of England. The poets
of the last age took to pedagogy (see Pope
and his School) and shrewd men they were;
those of the present age to ground and lofty
tumbling, and it will really do your heart
good to see how they vault !

1 A book attributed to Elizabeth's crafty and unscru-
pulous minister, Sir Francis Walsingham, entitled Ar-
cana Aulica or Walsingham's Manual of Prudential
Maxims. It was not published till long after Walsing-
ham's death.

2 Dr. Johnson's impromptu while Miss Reynolds was
pouring tea :

" Yet hear, alas ! this mournful truth,
Nor hear it with a frown,
Thou can' st not make the tea so fast
As I can gulp it down."
Hawkins' Life of Johnson (1787), p. 345, and Dr. Birk-
beck Hill's Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), ii. 315.

70

THOMAS CARLYLE.

It is a damnable heresy in criticism to
maintain either expressly or implicately that
the ultimate object of Poetry is sensation. 1
That of Cookery is such, but not that of Poetry.

Sir W. Scott is the great Restaurateur of
Europe: he might have been numbered
among their Conscript Fathers ; he has chosen
the worser part, and is only a huge Publicanus.
What is his novel, any of them ? A bout of
champagne, claret, port or even ale drinking.
Are we wiser, better, holier, stronger ? No :
we have been — amused. O Sir Walter, thou
knowest too well, that Virtus laudatur et alget. 2

Byron, good, generous, hapless Byron!
And yet when he died he was only a Kraft-
mann, Power-man as the Germans call them.
Had he lived he would have been a Poet. 3

I have read Shaftesbury's Characteristics
(same date), but found it wofully difficult to
keep my attention fixed on him. He is not
at all a man according to my heart ; yet I
would not deny him the credit of being a

1" Sensation, even of the finest and most rapturous
sort, is not the end but the means." " State of German
Literature" (1827), Essays, i. 47, where the true nature
of Poetry is discussed.

2 " For Virtue is but drily prais'd and starves." Dry-
den, Translation of Juvenal's Satires, i. 113.

3 " With longer life all things were to have been hoped
for from Byron." " State of German Literature," Essays,

i- 59-

7i

NOTE BOOK OF

man, that is a person conscious of himself
and his actions, fixed and determined on all
sides, not walking in darkness as others lead
him, but in light as he leads himself. He is a
Ciceronian sceptic, a philosopher of the eclec-
tic school ; the child of Culture not of Nature;
except to the men of his own age, therefore,
or to the historian of them, he has little to say.
Scarce a thought of his dwells with me, I am
sorry to say ; for which tho' I and my circum-
stances are partly, we are not wholly to blame.
" Pinch " for strait ; " anything worth " ;
" for good and all " &c. &c. —

What shall I say of Herder's Ideen zur
Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit? 1
An extraordinary Book, yet one which by no
means wholly pleaseth me. If Herder were
not known as a devout man and clerk, his
book would be reckoned atheistical. Every-
thing is the effect of circumstances and or-
ganisation : Er war was er seyn konnte / 2
The breath of life is but a higher intensa-
tion of Light and Electricity ! This is surely
very dubious, to say no worse of it. Theo-
ries of this and kindred sorts deform his
whole work here and there. — Immortality not
shewn us, but left us to be hoped for, and be-
lieved by Faith. Yet this world, as he thinks,

1 " Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind."

2 " He was what it was possible for him to be."

72

THOMAS CARLYLE.

sufficiently explainable without reference to
another : Humanitat the great object of Na-
ture in all her arrangements of society; from
the Troglodytes to the wits of Paris and
Weimar. How true is this ? At least this
ought to be our object. On the whole Herder
shews much of it himself. If any thing he
has a leaning to the East. But indeed he
loves all men and all things: his very de-
scriptions of animals and inanimate agencies
are animated, cordial, affectionate; much more
so those of men in their varied Thun und
Treiben^ tho' perhaps the former are not less
poetical.

Strange ideas about the Bible and Reli-
gion; passing strange we think them for a
clergyman. Must see more of Herder : he is a
new species in some degree ; a sort of Browne
redivivus? — O Athens, modern Athens ! An-
drew Thomson versus J. Gottfried Herder;
the "Apocryphal Controversy" versus the
Philosophy of Man ! Certainly we are the
most intellectual people in nature at pre-
sent. —

Tieck's Genoveva is a poetical play.
Golo, 2 I think, is best. Grimoald even has
some touch of beauty. Genoveva second best.
Martel one of the worst; and all the Saracens.

1 " Doing and dealing."

2 Golo, Grimoald, and the rest are characters in the play.

73

NOTE BOOK OF

Plan of it imitated from Gb'tz von Berlichin-
gen ? Too much beautiful description of na-
ture. Fine scene with the witch in Strasburg.
Benno's death, &c, &c.

Good Marchen, Melusine, in his own style
follows. — Tieck is next to Goethe — now that
Richter is gone.

Hans Sachs is a curious fellow; both in
age and character; full of humour, reading,
honesty, good nature ; of the quickest obser-
vation, three hundred years old, and — a
shoemaker, what a strange medley may we
not expect ! i Is his way of treating Heaven,
Christus, &c. like that of our old Mysteries ?
See the Tailor with the flag; St. Peter and the
Landsknechts, &c. — Story of the water-doctor
which I have heard applied to Habbie Bell of,
Shortrig/ 2 In like manner the Monk and
Miller's wife: so stories travel. — The Nar-
renschneiden I think the best of his pieces :
the Holen-Krapferi* is curious but more local in
its interest. — What of these poetical Zunfts?^
Where are they to be learned of?

S. Ranisch life of Hans Sachs (Altenb.
1765); Reformationsalmanach, 1821, by Chr.
Niemeyer. Busching has edited Sachs. —

1 See Carlyle's essay on the " State of German Litera-
ture" (1827), Essays, Vol. i.

2 Shortrig is the name of a farm in Dumfriesshire ;
Habbie Bell most likely the tenant of it. A. C.

3 Das Krappfen-holn. 4 " Guilds."

74

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Books recommended in Herder.

Beausobre, Mosheim, Brucker, W.alch, Jab-
lonski, Semler (writers on the Church opin-
ions ; the three last unknown to me).

Caylus, St. Palaye — their writings col-
lected from the Acad, des Inscriptions.

Pfeiffer (on Church matters).

Koch's Table des revolutions (trivial ?)

Fischer, Sibirische Geschichte

Whiston (What are his hist. & theological
works?)

Rosler's Bibl. der Kirchenvater.

Praise of Gibbon, p. 340 note.

Gatterer's Abriss der Universalgeschichte
(Gottingen 1773).

Mascou's Geschichte der Deutschen (Leipz.
1727).

Lucan, Mela, Columella, two Senecas,
Quintilian, Martial, Florus, Columella —
Spaniards.

Velasquez, History of Spanish poetry — in
German also (Gottingen 1769). ■

Ferrara's Hist, of Spain.

Mannert's Geographie der Griechen und
Romer (much praised).

F. C. J. Fischer, Sitten und Gebrauche der
Europaer im 5 und 6 Jahrhundert (1784).

Fischer's Geschichte des deutschen Han-
dels (The same Fischer ?)

Le Bret's History of Venice.

75

NOTE BOOK OF

Moser's Osnabriickische Geschichte.

Curne de Ste. Palaye, Chivalry of the Mid-
dle Ages (in various treatises).

( Reiske (orientalist), zum Thograi.
( Cardonne (do)

Poiret, Arnold (writers on Mystik).

Fiissli, Geschichte (Ketzer- und Kirchen-)
of the middle age.

Middleton's Life of Cicero praised p. 203.

Grellmann, Historisch Versuch iiber die
Zigeuner.

Historical materials for the Slavonians, p.
290. Miiller, Sulzer only known to me.

Meierotto iiber die Sitten und Lebensart
der Romer. Berlin, 1776.

Paruta (who was he ? Wrote on the Ro-
mans like Machiavel).

Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst.
(Must see that work).

Heyne, Demster, Buonarroti on the Etrus-
cans — also Paralipom. Passerii (!) Florence
1723-67.

Spon, Stuart, Chandler, Riedesel's Travels
in Greece.

Heyne, Opuscula Academ.

Meiners, Geschichte der Wissenschaften in
Griechenland und Rom.

Gillies has translated Lysias and Isocrates.

Parrhasius painted the Demon Athenien-
sium (strange mixture), Pliny.

The Chest of Cypselus (Heyne's Essay on)
76

THOMAS CARLYLE.

— his mother hid him in a xu^s'Xrj (chest) &
saved him from the Bacchiadae.

Eichhorn, Ges. des Ostindischen Handels.

Anquetil du Perron (orientalist).

Pallas, Nordische Beitrage.

Maillac, Hist, generate de la Chine.

Camper, Dutch comparative anatomist —
facial angle.

Forster, Zimmermann, Geographers.

Chardin, Voyages en Perse.

Reimarus (a naturalist. Triebe der Thiere
(are there two R's ?)

Blumenbach de varietate gen. hum.

Linnaei Amoenitates Academ.

5th Dp r To-morrow I write out a Pros-
pectus for a " Literary Annual
Register." Not at all likely that the Biblio-
polists will undertake such a thing at pres-
ent; however we will try.

To-day I have done, thought, said or seen

— nothing. Sofliehen meine Tage/ 1 Why
are the homines domes so happy ? Or is their
happiness rather cause than effect? Willie
Bell of Newfield 2 is not happy ; yet he is Mm-
ited enough.

Few men have the secret of being at once
determinate (besHtnmt) and open ; of know-

1 " Thus my days fly."

2 Newfield, a farm near Ecclefechan and Hoddam Hill.

A. C.

77

NOTE BOOK OF

ing what they do know, and yet lying ready
for farther knowledge.

Coleridge says, " Many men live all their
days without ever having an idea; and some
of them with thousands of things they call
ideas; but an Idea is not a Perception or
Image, it cannot be painted, it is infinite."
Such was his meaning (not his words) : I
half or three-fourths seem to understand him.

Literary Annual Register might be the title
of a work performing, for the intelligent part
of the reading world, some such service as
our many Forget-me-nots, Souvenirs &c seem
to perform for the idle part of it. A work
which should exhibit by such means as the
Author found most attainable a compressed
view of the actual progress of Mind in its
various manifestations during the bygone
year. It might consist :

i. Of Biographical portraits of distinguished
persons lately deceased; the year 1827 might
contain Byron, Parr, Jean Paul, Talma &c. ;
delineated with some degree of care and mi-
nuteness, in the style of the German Romance
(ein sehr unbekanntes Werk *) only at greater
length, and with a more flowing, popular and
anecdotic aspect. Not a dead detail of this
or that man's actions and writings chrono-
logically arranged, and backed with pieces

1 " A very obscure work."
78

THOMAS CARLYLE.

justificatives ; but an attempt, at least, to
bring a likeness of him before the reader ; for
which purpose it would naturally be neces-
sary first to have a likeness of him before
oneself.

2. Of Essays, Sketches, Miscellanies, of
various sorts, but all tending to exhibit the
distinctive phases of our existing style of Lit-
erature, Morals and Manners, to point out its
merits, and not hide its short-comings and
perversions ; on which points several things
might be adduced not a little surprising and
perhaps unpalatable to the optimists and mob
of gentlemen, that write with ease. Mechanics'
Institutes], Doctrine of Utility &c. &c.

3. Of Critiques, accompanied with consid-
erable extracts, of the few really good books
(or rather of the most considerable books)
produced lately in England, Germany, France,
Italy. This might be an interesting but ought
not to become too extensive a department of
the work. By right it should be an " Es-
sence of Reviewing," a spirit of the literary
produce of the year.

4. If there was any one (such might per-
haps be found) to give a similar account of
the works of Art for the year; the chief stat-
ues, pictures, engravings, a sheet or two might
very profitably be allotted to that purpose.

5. In case no better might be, I myself
would undertake to say something about

79

NOTE BOOK OF

Science ; to gather from Journals foreign and
domestic, something like a view of its actual
condition and progress within the year. On
this point to obtain help were no difficult
matter.

6. Tho' we propose to waive the consider-
ation of political and civil history, restricting
ourselves purely to what is intellectual &
moral; yet any such incidents, misfortunes,
delusions, crimes, heroic actions as seemed
strongly to illustrate the spiritual condition
of man in our time, it would be well to col-
lect, to sift, and preserve with as much accu-
racy as might be. The Prince Hohenlohe,
the Genevese Persecution ,the CommercialJoint
Stock Mania, the Catholic Association &c. (pro-
vided correct information could be obtained
regarding them) were well worth a few words.

Such are the leading elements of which this
work might consist. These ought not to be
arranged in distinct sections (at least not all
of them), so much depends upon the particu-
lar details of each individual year ; but min-
gled together in such manner as the Author
might judge most artist-like, and best calcu-
lated to fulfil his object, that of conveying to
the reader the truest impression he can give
him of the general progress of intellect during
the past year.

Poetry would not be excluded here and
there could such be come at; but from all

80

THOMAS CARLYLE.

" Odes written at — " " Lines to — " " Verses
on — " &c. &c. and the whole genus of" Songs
by a Person of Quality," good Lord deliver
hooz / *

If the Bookseller liked he might add a
register of Patents &c. &c. and so recom-
mend his work to " practical men." (N. B.
Not do. Essayons /) 2

7th December. " My whole life has been a
continued night-mare; and
my awakening will be in Hell." — Tieck.

" There is just one man unhappy; he who
is possessed by some idea which he cannot
convert into an action, or still more which
restrains and withdraws him from action."
— Goethe. Wie wahr / 3

"The end of man is an Action not a
Thoughts — Aristotle. 4

How many eulogies of Activity, and No-
thing acted !

Adam is fabled by the Talmudists to have

1 Vulgar Scotch pronunciation of "us." A. C.

2 The project of this Annual Register came to nothing.
3" How true ! "

4 " Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus
much : The end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought,
though it were the noblest?" Sartor Resartus, Book
ii. ch. vi. In his " Wotton Reinfred," — his unfinished
story, written in 1827, — Carlyle again cites this saying,
calling it "the wisest thing he [Aristotle] ever said."
The doctrine was one of the permanent articles of Car-
lyle's creed. The original is in the Ethics, x. 9. 1.

6 81

NOTE BOOK OF

had a wife before Eve : she was called Lilis
(see Faust — Goldne Hochzeit); and their
progeny was all manner of terrestrial, aquatic
and aerial — Devils ! — Burton. 1

Read Zacharias Werner's Life by Hitzig, 2
and his Mutter der Makkabaer, a Judaico-
Christian Tragedy, attempting very unsuc-
cessfully to represent the spirit of religious
martyrdom. The play is surely bad in most
respects. No character exhibited in the slight-
est degree probable; no incident grounded
on reality, no interest grounded on anything.
Some half score of ghosts figure in the piece :
Salome and her seven sons have no more life
than the wooden characters in the well-known
popular drama of Punch, Jason the renegate
Highpriest, Antiochus, Nicanor (in a less de-
gree) &c. &c. could have been tolerated by
no true Artist. This is the only work of
Werner's known to me ; and surely it has not
increased my desire of becoming farther ac-
quainted with him. I doubt much if he was
a Poet.

But what of his history ? A cloudy, vague,
mystic existence it was; the true secret of
which I am not sure that I can unravel. To

1 Cited in Sartor Resartus, Book i., ch. v.

2 In 1827 Carlyle published a long article on Werner.
See Essays, Vol. i. He expresses in it a similar opinion
on the Mutter der Makkabaer to that which he formed on
first reading it.

82

THOMAS CARLYLE.

say that he was mad is saying little : the
way in which fools unravel difficulties of that
sort. His mother was mad ; for she believed
herself to be the Virgin Mary, and that her
son was the Shiloh promised to the Gentiles :
but there is no such fatuity recorded of her
son. He had been extremely dissolute, it
would appear, in early life ; so much so that
his character was utterly broken, and his sen-
tient principles (strong at first) had got com-
plete mastery over his intellectual. There is
no knowing, in this case, what we may be
brought to believe. On the whole he was no
good man, this Werner: a sensualist, vain,
truckling, greedy, bent from first to last not
on being wise and good but on being gratified
and what he called happy. Chateaubriand,
Schlegel (Friedrich), Werner and that class
of men among ourselves, are one of the dis-
tinctive features of this time, when Babylon
the Great is about to be destroyed (her doom
is inevitably appointed) by Infidelity; and
Religion (too much interwoven with that
same Babylon) has not yet risen on her ruins,
but seems rather (only seems) as if about to
perish with her. — A curious Essay might be
written on the customary " Grounds of hu-
man Belief." — Yes, it is true! the decisions
of Reason ( Vernunft) are superior to those of
Understanding ( Verstand) : the latter vary in
every age (by what laws?), while the former

83

NOTE BOOK OF

last forever, and are the same in all forms
of manhood. —

O Parson Alison, what an Essay on Taste
is that of thine! 1 O most intellectual
Athenians, what accounts are those you
give us of Morality and Faith, and all that
really makes a man a man! Can you be-
lieve that the Beautiful and Good have no
deeper root in us than "Association," " Sym-
pathy," " Calculation ? " Then if so, whence
in Heaven's name, comes this sympathy, the
pleasure of this Association, the obbligante
of this Utility ? You strive, like the witch
of the Seethor (in Hoffmann) " to work from
the outside inward," and two inches below
the surface you will never get.

Sir William Temple's works, I read several
weeks ago; but for facts or opinions I
scarcely find that I have drawn any from
him, or indeed aught at all but the elevated,
calm, accomplished, mildly sceptical, yet on
the whole wise and benignant figure of the
man himself. Indeed he was no Artist or
speculative Philosopher, but a man of action ;
almost the beau ideal of an English gentle-

1 Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, by the
Rev. Archibald Alison, Edinburgh, 1790. A second
edition in 1811 was reviewed with high praise by Jeffrey
in the "Edinburgh Review." Alison's Theory of Taste
was based on the principle of " association." Dust lies
heavy on the book now.

84

THOMAS CARLYLE.

man in the era of Queen Anne. He is not
the best of conceivable characters, but I
doubt greatly if we have improved.

Apud se, " his own man." Burton (strange
book that of his, yet full of amusement). 1

" Conclusum est contra Manichaeos," 2 cried
Thomas Aquinas smiting the table with his
fist, and forgetful that he was at supper with
— King Louis.

"Ad haras aptius quam ad aras." 3 —
"Mould-warps." " A gripe." " Pullus Jovis
et gallinae filius albae." 4 "To overshoot
himself" — go beyond his means.

" Crambem bis coctam reponere," set out
cabbage twice boiled — a nasty enough dish.

The philosophy of Voltaire and his tribe
exhilarates and fills us with glorying for a
season; the comfort of the Indian who
warmed himself at the flames of his — bed.

1 This and the next entries are derived from The Anat-
omy of Melancholy.

2 " It is settled against the Manichaeans."

3 " Fitter for styes than for altars."

4 "Jove's chick, and the son of a white hen." Festus,
in his de Significatione Verborum, says, "The ancients
were wont to call the boy whom anyone loved his chick
(pullum)," and gives a curious instance of one Q. Fabius,
nicknamed ' ' Ivory ' ' because of the whiteness of his skin,
who was called pullus Jovis, because scarred on the rump
and not otherwise hurt by a thunderbolt. It appears
from Juvenal, Satire xiii. 141, that the phrase gallinae filius
albae was used proverbially for a favorite of fortune.

85

NOTE BOOK OF

" Deliquium." " Eating his own heart,"
Homer of Bellerophon. II. 3. (6 ?)

A clown that killed his ass for drinking up
the moon, ut Lunam mundo redderet 1 — In
Ludfovicus] Vives. True of many critics of
sceptics: the latter have not drunk up the
moon but the reflexion of it in their own dirty
puddle; therefore need not be slain. 2 —
(Who was Lud. Viv. ? Should have a mod-
ern Biographical Dictionary.)

" Inter pontem et fontem, inter gladium et
jugulum," 3 mercy may come to suicides.

An asse and a mule went laden over a brook

— the former with wool, the latter with salt;
which being wetted was much lightened.
u He told the Asse, who thinking to speed as
well wet his packe likewise at the next water,
but it was much the heavier, hee quite tired "

— (Camerarius Emb.) Burton. 230 —

A fool or a physician at forty ? Tiberius
thought at thirty. Tacit. Annal. 6. 4

1 " That he might restore the Moon to the world."
2 Carlyle repeated this story at the end of his essay on
Voltaire (1829). Essays, Vol. ii.

3 "Between the bridge and the stream,
Between the sword and the throat, — "
with which compare the distich

' ' Between the saddle and the ground,
He mercy sought and mercy found."
4 " He was accustomed to scoff at the arts of physi-
cians, and at those who after they were thirty years old
required advice as to what was serviceable or hurtful to
their health." Annals, vi., 46.

86

THOMAS CARLYLE.

" Mosses " (for bogs) "and Marishes."

" Nequaquam nos homines sumus, sed par-
tes hominis; ex omnibus aliquid fieri potest,
idque non magnum, ex singulis fere nihil." *
(Scaliger.) Not men but man.

" Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire (where
I was once a grammar Scholar) " — Burton.

" Oldbury in the confines of Warwickshire,
where I have looked about me with great
delight, at the foot of which hill I was born."
— And in a note — " At Lindley in Leices-
tershire the possession and dwelling-house
of Ralfe Burton Esquire my late deceased
Father."

" Aganella a faire maid of Corcyra " held
by some to be the inventor of Tennis;
"for shee presented the first ball that ever
was made to Nausicaa the daughter of
King Alcinous, and taught her how to
use it."

" Carew's Survey of Cornwall," sometimes
quoted by Johnson. — Ascham. —

Domitian delighted to catch flies; Augustus
to play with nuts amongst children; Alex-
ander Severus was often pleased to play with
whelps and young pigs.

Glucupicron. Nocumentum Documentum.

1 " In no wise are we men, but parts of man ; out of
all something, at best no great thing, may be made ; out
of individuals, scarce anything."

87

NOTE BOOK OF

Julius Caesar Scaliger was born at Ripa
near Verona in 1484. His parentage was
much contested in his lifetime: he himself
(and his son) pretended a descent from the
Princes of Verona ; but on this matter their
assertions were " strongly doubted." Julius
led a wandering life; first a page at some
Court or other ; more than once in the army,
then as physician at Agen in France and
Paris where he died. He began to study in
his 30 th year : his first publication was in [his]
47* A man of vehement parts and temper;
malleus scienliae, who amassed knowledge (of
the kind then to be had) without stint; but
seems to have been in regard to wisdom very
scantily endowed even to the last. There is no
life of him that I know except some details
by his son Joseph Justus Scaliger, a man
also of huge erudition, who removed from
Paris to a Professorship at Leyden (with, ac-
cording to Menage, a most contemptuous
conge from Henry IV.) where he wrote An-
notations, (Equations of the Calendar ?) and
Letters concerning the Antiquity and Splen-
dour of the Scaliger family ; and after a fair
space "deed and did nocht ava\" * Has
Bayle any Life of him or his father ?

Roger Ascham's Life has been written by

1 " Sandy Blackadder, factor at Hoddam (long ago),
a heavy, baggy, big, long-winded man, was overheard

88

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Dr. Johnson; Edward Grant, the tutor of his
son Giles, has likewise printed an Oratio de
Vita et Obitu Rogeri Aschami. Chief work is
his Schoolmaster (which I must see); his
loxophilus ; Letters ; Letter on the State of
Germany. Born 15 15 (at Kirby Wiske near
Northallerton): died 1568. Was Queen
Elizabeth's Tutor ; a Protestant, yet tolerated
even favoured by Queen Mary. He seems
to have liked good living; and is reported to
have been very fond of " dice and cockfight-
ing " ! Yet undoubtedly a good sort of man,
and one well worth my study, which accord-
ingly by Heaven's grace he shall not fail to
have. (18 th December.)

Accipite cives veneti quod est optimum in
rebus humanis : res humanas contemnere. 1 —
Sebastian Foscarini, Doge of Venice, made
this be engraved on his tomb. 2

one day, in a funeral company which had not yet risen,
discoursing largely in monotonous undertones to some
neighbors about the doings, intentions, and manifold in-
significant proceedings of some anonymous fellow-man ;
but at length wound up with ' and then he deed and did
nought ava.' " Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh
Carlyle, i. 315, note.

1 " Hear, citizens of Venice, what is best in human af-
fairs : to hold them in low esteem."

2 This inscription may have been engraved on the
tomb of a Doge, but no Sebastian Foscarini was ever
Doge of Venice. Marco Foscarini was Doge in 1762,
but the words cited seem of earlier date.

89

NOTE BOOK OF

Ludovicus Vives was a Spaniard, at one
time Tutor to Queen Mary, but obliged to
leave England on occasion of Queen Cather-
ine his patroness' divorce, which he disap-
proved. He is buried at Bruges. His works
are in two folios (it seems), analogous to
those of les Daciers, les Saumaises. 1

Sir T. Browne was born in 1605 at London ;
father a merchant : he died on his birthday
1682 at Norwich. Knighted by Charles II.
The Religio Medici made a mighty noise at
its first appearance, over all Europe. Alex-
ander Ross opposed Browne on this as on
all occasions. Whitefoot, a contemporary,
has written a life of Browne (prefixed I
suppose to some edition of his works): so
also has Dr. Johnson (do.). Browne had
travelled over Europe; been at Padua uni-
versity &c.

Of Burton the Anatomiser of Melancholy
little is to be learned. Materials for a life
of him were collected by Peck. (Who were
these Pecks, Birches, &c. ?) He was a
younger brother; was born 1576; obtained
some little ecclesiastical preferment at Oxford
and in the neighborhood ; was a melancholic
man himself; the saddest in his dark fits and
one of the gayest and brightest in his lucid
intervals. A firm believer in astrology ; and
1 See ante, p. 4.
90

THOMAS CARLYLE.

dying at the very time his horoscope calcu-
lated by himself, some people suspected he
" had assisted Nature." His book under-
taken for his own cure did not cure him : in
his black mood he used to go down to the
river side (at Oxford?) and listen to the
ribaldry of the boatmen, which made him
laugh till his sides ached again. Credat
Apella / If the man had been rightly melan-
choly, all the ribaldry in nature would have
failed to win a smile from him. His Brother
(elder) wrote a history of Leicestershire (their
native county) for which he is thought worthy
of the main article in the Biog. Britan.

FABLE.*

Once upon a time a man, somewhat in
drink belike, raised a dreadful outcry at the
corner of the market place, " that the world
was all turned topsy-turvy, that the men and
cattle were all walking with their feet upper-
most, that the houses and earth in general
(if they did not mind it) would fall into the
sky; in short that unless the most prompt
means were taken, things in general were on
the high road to the Devil." As the people
only laughed at him, he cried the more vehe-
mently, nay at last began to objure to foam
and imprecate, when a goodnatured auditor

1 " This and the following fables are reprinted, slightly
altered, in Carlyle's Essays," Vol. i, Appendix.

91

NOTE BOOK OF

going up took the Orator by the haunches,

and softly inverting his position, set him down

— on his feet. The which upon perceiving

his mind was staggered not a little. " Ha ?

Deuce take it ! " said he, rubbing his eyes : " so

it was not the world that was hanging by its

feet, but I that was standing on my head ! "

Public Censor, Castigator Morum, Radical

Reformer, by whatever name thou art called !

Have a care ! Especially if thou art getting

loud, look to it ! _,.. T .

Pilpay Junior.

The instruction communicated by Fable is
in its nature chiefly prohibitive ; therefore
not the highest species, which latter belongs
to the Province of Poetry. (?)

Nothing harder than to form a true judge-
ment of foreign minds and forms of charac-
ter, especially if they are separated from us
by diversity of language, institution, date and
place. A Bond-street Tailor can pronounce
with extreme readiness and certainty about
the beauty or deformity of foreign costumes,
and his judgement will be satisfactory to
other Bond-street Tailors; a Winckelmann
with far less readiness and certainty, and
other Artists and Critics may dispute or
deny his decision after all. For the one only
asks himself: Does this differ from the fash-
ion of Lord Petersham ? but the other : Does

92

THOMAS CARLYLE.

this differ from the fashion of God Almighty ?
— You Travellers, Moores, Clarkes, Russels,
Morgans ! Ye should think of this.

What a fine thing a Life of Cromwell, like
the Vie de Charles XII would be ! The wily
fanatic himself, in his own most singular fea-
tures, at once a hero and a blackguard petti-
fogging scrub; and the wild image of his
Times reflected from his accompaniment ! I
would travel ten miles on foot to see his soul
represented as I once saw his body in the
Castle of Warwick. —

" Nave ferar magna an parva, ferar unus et
idem." 1
" Durum et durum non faciunt murum." 2
Two railers elicit no truth? — "Self-do, self-
have." ("His ain wand '11 whip him."). —
Helena's Nepenthe? supposed by some to be
Borage, by others to be Opium, by others
(me among them) to be — nothing.

FABLE II.

" Gentlemen," said a Conjuror, one fine
starry evening, "these Heavens are a deceptio

1 " Whether borne on a great ship or a small, let me be
borne one and the same man." — Horace, Epist. II. ii. 200.

2 " Hard and hard make not a wall."

3 A drug "which lulls sorrow and strife, and brings
forgetfulness of every ill." Odyssey, iv. 221.

93

NOTE BOOK OF

visus, what you call stars are nothing but
fiery motes in the air: wait a little I will
clear them off, and shew you how the matter
really is." Whereupon the Artist produced a
long syringe of great force; and stooping
over the neighbouring puddle rilled it with
dirty water, which he then squirted with
might and main towards the zenith. The
wiser of the party unfurled their umbrellas ;
but most part looking up in triumph, cried :
" Aha, my little stars ! are ye out at last ? I
always thought you cheats: we have long
been — " Here the dirty water fell; and be-
spattered and beblotched these simple per-
sons ; and even put out the eyes of several,
so that they never saw the stars any more.

Critic ! Truth, Beauty, Goodness is the
Heaven and the Stars : These, the very
meanest of them, no effort of thy syringe is
likely to reach : and the higher thy puddle-
jet, the weightier and dirtier will be its re-
turn! Qui spuit in coelum in se spuit (P) 1

January, Read Mendelssohn's Phadon, a
1827. half translation, half imitation of

Plato's Phaedon, or last thoughts
of Socrates on the Immortality of the Soul.
Plato's work I have never seen but must
see. Mendelssohn's is certainly written with
great beauty and simplicity : the intro-

1 " He who spits at heaven spits on himself."
94

THOMAS CARLYLE.

ductory part concerning the character of
Socrates is almost a model of graceful modest
narrative ; what follows is in a more difficult
style but scarcely less perfect. The work is
divided into three Dialogues : the First (so far
as I can remember) treats of the highest good
of man, namely wisdom, and proves that it
is a blessing to get out of the body to philoso-
phize. The Second, in answer to some objec-
tions from two of the interlocutors, endeav-
ours to prove the immateriality of the Soul, a
necessary condition of its indivisibility and
immortality. It is an answer to the Free-
thinkers' scheme in Martinus Scriblerus :
"The Jack has a meat-roasting quality ; so
likewise, &C." 1 Socrates' arguments turn on
this principle : all those qualities, indeed all
unity of any sort perceived in an object, be-
longs not to the object but to the mind that
sees it; hence this subject (the mind) from
which all qualities originate cannot itself be a
quality. (?) It cannot be a composite power;
because there is in reality no change of power
produced by a mixture of simple powers, but

1 " In every jack there is a meat-roasting quality, which
neither resides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any
particular wheel of the jack, but is the result of the whole
combination : so in an animal, the self-consciousness is
not a real quality inherent in one being (any more than
meat-roasting in a jack) but the result of several modes
or qualities in the same subject." Memoirs of the ex-
traordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus
Scriblerus, Book i, ch. 12.

95

NOTE BOOK OF

only a modification, the secret of which escap-
ing our sense, we call it a new power, but
falsely. An acid and an alkali produce a
neutral salt : what then ? Tho' to our eyes,
taste, touch &c, the properties of this new
substance seem entirely different from those
of its component parts, the truth is not so ;
there is nothing in it, but some virtues of the
acid obstructed, forwarded, cancelled, diver-
ted &c, by the virtues of the alkali; and so
in #// corporeal compositions: the newness oi
the power is only in our way of viewing it.
Hence the component parts of the soul
would be all souls ; hence the soul is one;
hence indestructible, indivisible, immortal.
The Third Dialogue meets the objection of
Cebes : How do we know that the soul is
not to fall into sleep (if not death) forever ?
It is chiefly Mendelssohn's own; talks of
Perfectibility (not of man alone but of the
whole universe ) ; Unhappiness of disbelief in
these truths, &c. &c; much less scientific
and more rhetorical than the foregoing. On
the whole, it is a good book; — and con-
vincing ? Ay de mi! These things, I
fear, are not to [be] proved, but believed;
not seized by the Understanding but by
Faith. However, it is something to remove
errors, if not introduce truth ; and to shew
us that our analogies drawn from corporeal
things are entirely inapplicable to the case.
96

THOMAS CARLYLE.

For the present, I will confess it, I scarce
see how we can reason with absolute cer-
tainty on the nature or fate of attiring;
for it seems to me we only see our own
perceptions and their relations; that is to
say, our soul sees only its own partial re-
flex and manner of existing and conceiv-
ing. I should have this cleared up : How
does Kant manage it ? — (" White men know
nothing.")

" A weeping woman is as much to be pitied
as a goose going barefoot." — Burton.

"Done to his hand." — South. (What a
fierce, dogmatical, sarcastic, unchristian priest
is South !)

" Sleeveless errand." — Burton.

" Looks out at window." — B. " all out "
— quite.

Mali corvi malum ovum ; } Cat to her kind.

" Non qua eundum, sed qua itur." 2

It was Petronius that wrote that hemistich : —
Primus in orbe deos fecit Timor.

(Was he the author of the sentiment 7 3 it
is now trite enough.)

l'*The bad egg of a bad crow." The origin and
significance of this proverb are discussed by Erasmus,
Adagiorum Chil. i. Cent. ix. Prov. 25.

2 " Not where one should go, but where one is going."

3 " Fear first made the gods in the world." The words
form part of the first verse of a fragment ascribed to Pe-
tronius, but they are also part of a verse by Statius,

7 97

NOTE BOOK OF

C'est nos craintes qui ont forme les cieux; a
line at which I once in the Theatre Francais
heard all the people standing up raise a vehe-
ment shout of approval. Unhappy France !
Talma was then acting, CEdipe : he is now
dead ; one by one the stars go out.

" As common as a Barber's chair."

7 Jany After a considerable struggle, and
1827. not without many interruptions, I
have this morning finished Burton's
Anatomy of Melancholy. What to say of the
Book parum constat)- Dr. Johnson was in the
habit of commending it; 2 but chiefly, I should
think, from its subject, which with the Doctor
was constitutionally interesting. Burton doubt-
less had " a pleasant wit," a taste also for the
Beautiful (especially if it was the Comfortable
at the same time) and still more for the Cu-
rious ; but his mind looks as if he had sur-
veyed the world chiefly from the observatory
of his Library in an Oxford College ; and
found the gratification of these his tastes not
so much in actual inspection of things with

Thebaid, iii. 661. It is impossible, in the uncertainty
concerning the date of Petronius, to say to which poet
they actually belong.

1 " Is hardly clear."

2 " Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy ' he said, was the
only book that ever took him out of bed two hours
sooner than he wished to rise." Reported by the Rev.
Dr. Maxwell in his Collectanea : printed by Boswell in his
Life of Johnson.

9 S

THOMAS CARLYLE.

his simple vision, as with armed vision, armed
by all the reading that it ever entered into the
head of lazy Bookworm to engage with. He
is a singular, a thinking, observing, character-
voile man ; but of no admirable gifts (except
memory), and of little or no wisdom but what
distinguishes the greater part of English
country Parsons; a cleanly, comfort-loving,
Greek-and-Latin-reading, but often too sec-
tarian and self-conceited, and withal shallow
and ill-informed race of persons. As a sci-
entific treatise his Book is worth absolutely
nothing : I may say there is no conclusion in
it in which anything is concluded. Dunce
neutralizes Dunce, and one quack prescrip-
tion stands (like bane and antidote) fronting
with hostile visage another as quackish. The
work is an olla podrida ; you cannot eat the
cursed dish as it stands cooked before you;
and tho' you pick many a most dainty morsel
from it, you wish with your whole soul the
man had been contented with purveying, and
never tried to cook the viands at all. (Schlechles
Bild/ 1 ) Burton however is over, and I do
not purpose soon to trouble him again.

Sapientia prima est stultitid caruisse 2 " The
prime wisdom is to have got rid of folly;" fully

l" A bad image."

2 — sapientia prima

Stultitia caruisse. Horace, Epist. i. i. 41.

99

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as well thus: Stultitia prima est sapientid ca-
ruisse; the case of all material metaphysicians,
most utilitarian moralists, and generally of all
negative Philosophers, by whatever name they
call themselves.

It was God that said Yes : it is the Devil
that forever says No. 1

Leibnitz and Descartes found all Truth to
rest in our seeing and believing in God : we
English have found our seeing and believing
in God to rest on all Truth j and pretty work
we have made of it !

Why dost thou despise that ignorant and
ill-mannered man, while thou pitiest and help-
est that poor and ragged one ? — I give the
pauper sixpence and my blessing; but if his
rags offend the nostril, I contrive to make
him go his ways.

Is not Political Economy useful; and
ought not Joseph Hume and MacCulloch
to be honoured of all men ? — My cow is
useful, and I keep her in the stall, and feed
her with oil -cake and " draff-and-dreg," and
esteem her truly: but shall she live in my

1 " The Everlasting No had said : ' Behold, thou art
fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine [the
Devil's].'" Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. vii.

ioo

THOMAS CARLYLE.

parlour? No, by the Fates, she shall live
in the stall! —

FABLE III.

" It is I that support this household," said
a Hen one day to herself: "The master can-
not breakfast without an egg, for he is dys-
peptical and would die, and it is I that lay
it. And here is this lazy Poodle doing no-
thing earthly, and gets thrice the meat I do,
and is caressed all day ! By the Cock of
Minerva, they shall give me a double portion
of corn, or I will strike ! " But much as she
cackled and creaked, the scullion would not
give her an extra grain. Whereupon in dud-
geon, she hid her egg in the dunghill, and
did nothing but cackle and creak all day.
The scullion suffered her for a week; then
(by order) drew her neck; and purchased
other eggs at six-pence the dozen !

Man ! why frettest and whinest thou ? This
blockhead is happier than thou, and still but
a blockhead ? So thy services are not ade-
quately repaid ? But art thou sure thou dost
not overrate them? 1 At all rates it is vain
for thee to strike work with Providence : He
is no Manchester manufacturer; Him thou
canst not force to thy terms. Believe it he

l Cf. Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. ix., where these re-
flections are developed.

IOI

NOTE BOOK OF

will do without thee. 77 rty a point d'hofnme
necessaire.

1 6th J anuary , Qui spuit in coelum in se spuit. x
1827. (perhaps wrong arranged, for

I write from memory.)

Who was Gassendi ? and what were his Me-
taphysics ? I have seen his Commentaries on
Newton ; but know nothing more of him j
yet he is said (by Reinhold) to be the father
of the existing French Philosophy.

Locke, Hume, Reid &c. &c. are Empirics;
Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant &c. are Rational-
ists. Which is right ? I begin to see some
light thro' the clouds in Kantism ; tho' Rein-
hold is somewhat of a Will-o'-wisp guide, I
fear. Empiricism, if consistent, they say,
leads direct to Atheism! — I am afraid it does.

Yes, Virtue is its own reward; but in a
very different sense than you suppose, Dr.
Gowkthrapple ! 2 " The pleasure it brings " ? —
Had you ever a diseased liver ? I will main-

1 " Who spits at the sky spits on himself."

2 "That chosen vessel, Maister Gowkthrapple."

Waverley, ch. xxix.
In his Essay on Diderot Carlyle speaks of Naigeon,

Diderot's biographer, " as a man with the vehemence of

some pulpit-drumming Gowkthrapple."

THOMAS CARLYLE.

tain, and appeal to all competent judges, that
no evil conscience with a good nervous sys-
tem ever caused tenth part of the misery that
a bad nervous system tho' conjoined with the
best conscience in nature will always produce.
What follows then ? Pay off your moralist,
and hire two Apothecaries and two Cooks.
Socrates is inferior to Captain Barclay, and
the Enchiridion of Epictetus must hide its
head before Kitchener's Peptic Precepts.
Heed not the Immortality of the Soul, so
long as you have Beefsteak, Port, and —
Blue Pills ! — Das hole der Teufel / — Virtue
is its own reward because it needs no reward.

The Hildebrands, the Philips and the Borgias
Where are they now ? Behind the scene ; mute as
The millions whom they butchered in their rage.
Hard task they had, poor men : what was their

wage?
From God, we know not, but may dread the worst ;
From man, a grave and memory forever curst :
Who worships self a foolish thought has ween'd,
Must offer all, and find his God — a Fiend.
(Our cousin Swift has no turn for poetry.)

To prove the existence of God as Paley
has attempted to do (a Kantean would say)
is like lighting a lantern to seek for the Sun :
if you look hard by your lantern, you may
even miss your search.

103

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" My dear Sir," said Captain Esbie, "there
is nothing like getting on" Ay de mil

"The artist," it has been said, "collects
beauties and combines them; a bright eye
from this, a fair round chin from that, a taper
form from the other, and so makes up his
Venus." Ah no ! In this way he will form
a bed-quilt or a hearth-rug, but no poem.

A Poem springs, like Minerva from the
head of Jove, full armed and complete, if it
is to live and give life.

Do we think sometimes, as Schlegel says,
without thoughts ? Or what wind is it that
will rend asunder the thick clouds, and shew
us the fair golden landscape lying full perfect
and ready-formed without our having shaped
it, otherwise than in the dark ? Yet was not
Praxiteles' Jove created in this fashion, when
the evening song of the maidens coming from
the well revealed it to the struggling and long-
baffled statuary ? There is more in the poet's
heart than Mr Alison or Mr Stewart dreams
of. Bring it out then an' be hanged ! —
Eheu! —

FABLE. [IV]

" What is the use of thee, thou gnarled sap-
ling ? " said a young larch-tree to a young
oak. "I grow three feet in the year, thou
scarcely half as many inches ; I am straight
104

THOMAS CARLYLE.

and taper as a reed, thou weak and twisted
as loosened withe": — "And thy duration,"
answered the Oak, " is some third part of
man's life; and I flourish for a thousand years.
Thou art felled, and sawed into paling, where
thou rottest and art burnt after a single sum-
mer: of me are fashioned battleships, and I
carry mariners and heroes into unknown seas."

The richer a character, the harder and
slower in general is its development. Two
boys were once of the same class in our Edin-
burgh school; John ever trim precise and
dux, Walter ever slovenly confused and dolt :
in due time John became Baillie Waugh, and
Walter became Sir Walter Scott.

The quickest and completest of all vegeta-
bles is — the Cabbage.

The fraction of life will increase equally by
diminishing the denominator as by augment-
ing the numerator. 1 [March, 1827.]

Eschenburg'sDenkma/eratideufsc/ierDic/it-
kunst.

A popular delusion is like smoke : it is vain

1 " So true it is, what I then said, that the Fraction of
Life can be increased in value not so much by increasing
your Numerator as by lessening your Denominator. Nay,
unless my Algebra deceive me, Unity itself divided by
Zero will give Infinity." Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. ix.

105

NOTE BOOK OF

to cut into it with swords and maces; leave
it alone, and the air will absorb it by degrees.
If it is in small quantity, &fan may sometimes
help you ; not if it is in great ; but there is
always hope in the air.

" Lieber ware mir's, wenn ich plotzlich
sttirbe." 1 Winckelmann [letter to Berends]
12 July, 1751.

" Marco Barbarigo and Franc. Trevisano, 2
two Nobilidi Venetia, whose memory has been
preserved in a rare piece of writing," are the
only two modern Friends, thinks Winckel-
mann. Where is the Schrift?*

Friendship not once mentioned in the
whole New Testament (so also says Hume) ;
und es ist vielleicht ein Gliick vor die
Freundschaft ; denn sonst bliebe gar kein
Platz vor den Uneigennutz; 4 all virtues hav-
ing there some temporal or eternal recom-

1 " I should be glad if I could die suddenly."

2 Carlyle cites the baptismal names incorrectly ; see
the following note.

3 Letter to Berends, 17 Sept., 1754. The "rare piece
of writing" referred to is entitled Breve racconto dell'
amicizia mostruosa in perfezione tra Niccolb Barbarigo e
Marco Trivisano. In Venezia, 1627, in 8vo. A Latin
translation seems to have been published the next
year.

4 "And this is perhaps fortunate for friendship, for
otherwise there would have been no place for unselfish-
ness." Id.

106

THOMAS CARLYLE.

pense promised them. — No wonder Goethe
calls him a Heide. x

i

Mein Gott ich wollte sehr gerne sterben,

mit grosser Wohllust meiner Seele: so weit
habe ich es in der That und Wahrheit
gebracht. — Winckel. — 2

Ich habe nunmehro bald sechs Jahre in
Sachsen gelebet, und kann mich nicht entsin-
nen dass ich recht gelacht habe. 3

Allein : Erkenntlichkeit verlangen, heisst
beynahe — Undank verdienen. 4

Dr. Ebel best traveller in Switzerland.

Villemain, an able writer of Melanges.

Comte de Lacepede — general Hist, of
Europe, in 18 vol. — last — 1827. Consider-
ably praised ; apparently (from the extract) a
bagpipe.

Cicognara's History of Sculpture.

Spanish writers (from an article in the
Revue encyclopedique). h

1 " Him," that is, Winckelmann, " a heathen."

2 «« My God I would very willingly die, with entire de-
light of my soul: so far have I attained in deed and
truth." Letter to Berends, 17 Sept., 1754.

3 " I shall soon have lived six years in Saxony, and I
cannot recall having once honestly laughed." Id., 6
July, 1754.

4 " But to require gratitude comes very near deserving
unthankfulness." Id., 10 March, 1755.

5 Tome XXXIII, Feb. 1827. The article is by Muriel.

107

NOTE BOOK OF

Leandro-Fernandez de Moratin (the
younger) regarded here as the restorer of
the dramatic art in Spain. Has written five
or six Comedies (indifferent apparently and
in the style of the French) ; first in 1788 : he
seems to be still living. 1

Barthelemy Torres Naharro — a play-writer
of the 1 6th century.

Pinciano Philosophy of ancient Poesy. 1596.

Luzan {Poetics, Saragossa 1737) insists on
the French principles of taste. Followed up by :

Mayans (Rhetoric); Nasarre (prefacer of
Cervantes & comedies); Montiano y Luy-
ando (who wrote a comedia of his own).

Nicolas-Fernandez de Moratin (the father)
put forth three tragedies — moderates.

Cadahalso, Ayala, Huerta, Palacios wrote
plays also about the same time. The best
seemingly of only moderate merit; and in
imitation of the French.

Sempere (Best writers under the reign of
Charles III. In Spanish I presume tho' it is
not so stated).

"The muses of [Lope de Vega] Montal-
van, Calderon, Moreto, Rojas, Soils, Zamora
and Caiiizares; those of Bazo, Regnard
(French ? ) Laviato, Corneille, Moncin, Me-
tastasio, Cornelia, Moliere,Valladares, Racine,
Zabala, Goldoni, Nifo and Voltaire were aston-
ished at seeing themselves in company" [p. 469].
1 He died in 1828.
108

THOMAS CARLYLE.

D. Gaspar Melchior de Jovellanos wrote
the Delinquenie Honrado in 1770; a drame,
full of honest sentiments, if not of great
poetry. Genre mixte.

Trigueros, Melendez Valdes, Cristophe-
Maria Cortes, had three prizes for plays in
1784. Indifferent.

Tomas Iriarte ; sl satirist and sensible man,
but of no divine fire.

Juan de Iriarte — another of the same.

The period between 1780 and 1790 the
last years of the reign of Charles III. have
been most illustrious ; the government anxious
to forward improvement in any way, and tho'
arbitrary, enlightened and energetic. Here
" Jovellanos, Campomanes, Tavira, Roda and
Llaguno were at once the pride and the
support of philosophy and sound literature."

Boscan and Garcilaso were named Petrar-
quistes, as their modern successors are called
Gallicistes.

Hurtado de Mendoza, Saa de Miranda,
Montemayor, Herrera (surnamed the Divine),
Father Louis de Leon, Gil Polo were all
Petrarquists, yet " the glory of Spanish Lit-
erature."

Abbe Quadrio Sioria poetica (Italian ? )
Capmany, Marchena — men of mould ?

What is the present state of Literature in
Spain ? How deep and total is our ignor-
ance on that point at present! Is there such

109

NOTE BOOK OF

a thing as a Madrid Review ? A Spanish
newspaper would shew to us almost like a
Herculaneum one. This should be altered.
N. B. The Revue Encydopedique a review
of merit, and worthy to be imitated and
improved upon in Britain.

Nearly 14 millions of volumes are printed
annually in France ; of these 400,000 by F.
Didot.

665 printing offices in all France; 82 at
Paris: in 1825, there were 1550 presses in
activity, in Paris 850 of these.

At Paris there are 480 Booksellers, and 84
Boothkeepers ; elsewhere 922.

The whole money annually gained in the
producing of those 14 to 13 millions of
volumes, the Count Daru estimates at 33,-
750,000 francs; comprehending all from the
wages of the ragman to those of the Author.
Authors, it seems, come in for a very poor
share 500,000 francs being their whole in-
come in France. 1

In this the newspapers seem not to be
comprised, at least not the daily ones, the
feuilles quotidiennes.

Grassi, Niccolini, Pezzana, Gherardini,
Abbe Romani, Monti, Italian Grammarians
of some note.

1 See Revue encyclope'digtie, xxxiii. 562.
no

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Foscolo, Rossetti, Troya, etc., etc. Com-
mentators of Dante, who is at present lit-
erally the idol of Italians.

Champollion's system of Phonetic char-
acters has been well received in Italy : Mai,
Peyron, Orioli, Valeriani " savans les plus re-
commendables " do justice to him.

The Biblioteca Italiana of Milan and the
Antologia of Florence contend the first for
the Romantics, the second for the Classics ;
a dispute which seems at present to be
spreading over most part of Europe. The
Arcadic Journal of Rome is a classicist, but
often with more zeal than judgement. The
Anthology seems to be the best of these three.

Gherardini, the translator and impugner of
SchlegePs Dramaturgic lectures.

Manzoni, a poet and romanticist, but who
has failed in exemplifying his new theories as
applied to the practice of writing tragedies —
The Count of Carmagnola and Adelghis are
their titles.

Thomas Grossi a young poet, praised for
his Ildegonda, has written a new Epic entitled :
The Lombards in the first Crusade ; which
some have said, surpasses Jerusalem Delivered.
The pamphlets on the subject have been
numerous and loud : our French critic asserts
modestly that it is neither so good nor
so bad as it has been called. Grossi is a
Romantic.

in

NOTE BOOK OF

The town of Milan alone publishes about
a score of Journals.

Wagner, Weiller, Hegel, Krug, are testators,
opposers or commentators of Kant. Eschen-
mayer also.

Bardili's Rational Realism, is it not like the
doctrine of Malebranche ?

Bouterwek, System of Virtuality : " the sub-
jective and objective are nothing without
each other."

Annihilation of the Subject — Spinosism and
materialism.

Fichte's Transcendental Idealism, " elimi-
nation of the object ; " that is deducing the
not-me from the me ?

Schelling's Ideal Realism, Philosophy of Na-
ture, but usually called the System of Identity ;
" because it represents the subject and the
object as absolutely identical and comming-
ling and compounding themselves in intellec-
tual intuition." — To this I can attach next to
no meaning.

Fichte pretended to have deduced his sys-
tem from Kant, which Kant eagerly denied.
Kant's system of morality is universal in Ger-
many; his metaphysics are disfigured, mis-
represented, no longer studied in his own
writings, but (says this critic) well worthy of
being studied.

Kant reminded me of father Boscovich :

112

THOMAS CARLYLE.

but alas ! I have only read ioo pages of his
works. How difficult it is to live! How
many things to do, how little strength, how
little time to do them ! T. C.

There is an Historical Sketch of Indus-
trialism by one Dunoyer; 1 a political theory
this Industrialism of which I have hitherto
never heard, and which seems to mean very
little if anything. According to the Indus-
triels (the chief of whom was one Saint-Simon,
reputed mad) the proper object of legislation
is not this or that form of political govern-
ment, but the means of forwarding useful ac-
tivity which is or ought to be the ultimate
aim of all existing nations. — God help us!
has not this been understood and admitted in
all systems of political philosophy for the last
century. St. Simon was for wonders upon
wonders; a sort of priesthood of Savans,
and what not. " II se maria pour faire des
hommes de genie, et n'eut pas mSme des
enfants." — poor soul ! — He said he was de-
scended from Charlemagne. I understand,
he is dead. Thierry, Maignien, Auguste
Comte are more sensible men, who wrote
for him, and allowed themselves to be called
his pupils.

Mem. To read the Golden Ass of Apuleius.
Burney's Life of Metastasio.

lln the Revue encyclopidique, Feb., 1827.
8 113

NOTE BOOK OF

Of the world, for us, is made a world-
edifice ; of the Aether a Gas ; of God a
Power; and of the second world a Coffin. —
Jean Paul, Levana.

Intellectual Individuality to be respected
and maintained; moral Individuality to be
modified, but only by strengthening antagonist
qualities, not weakening those that appear
originally in excess. "Thus let Frederick
the Only (der Einzige) take his Flute, and
Napoleon his Ossian."

" Our present time is indeed a criticising
and critical one ; hovering betwixt the wish
and the inability to believe, a chaos of
conflicting times: but even a chaotic world
must have some Point, and Revolution
round that Point, and Aether too; there is
no pure entire Confusion and Discord, but
all such presupposes its Contrary, before it
can begin."

" But from of old, among nations the Head
has outrun and got before the Heart ; often
by centuries, as in the Negro trade ; nay by
tens of centuries, as perhaps in war."

Light goes quicker than warmth: hence
every new intellectual revolution, seems at
first destructive to morality.

" When in your last hour (think of this) all
within the broken spirit shall fade away, and
die into inanity, Imagining, Thinking, En-
deavouring, Enjoying — then at last blooms

114

THOMAS CARLYLE.

on the night-flower of Belief alone, and re-
freshes with its perfume in the last darkness."

Heyne's Virgil, Leipzig, 1803,4 vol. 8vo.,
the best edition (the London ones were mis-
managed); there is also a " Hand edition" of
1803 in 2 vol.; but whether it does not want
something I know not. This Book I must
have. 1

Tibullus, Pindar, Homer (8 vol. Leipz. &
London. 1822)

Sammlung antiquarischer Aussatze. 1778-
1779; about the Laocoon, Venus, Pliny's Au-
thorities, &c &c ; the Chest of Cypselus among
the rest.

An immensity of papers in the Gottingen
Society. Chiefly upon Art (Etruscan &c.) and
the philosophy of Fables and My thuses. Some-
thing of Sparta. Of the influence of sudden
increase of wealth in ancient states. Of Baby-
lonian women annually at the Temple of Venus.
On Winckelmann's history of Art. &c. &c.

filoges &c. Michaelis, Miiller, Gmelin,
Kattner, Gatterer, &c.

Prolusiones Academicae (at London. 1790
no table of contents; but I suppose all in-
cluded in the)

Opuscula Academica. Gotting. 1785-
1812. Chiefly on Aesthetical Antiquity. De

1 The following paragraphs contain a list of Heyne's
works.

115

NOTE BOOK OF

morum vi ad sensum pulchritudinis. De
Genio Saeculi Ptolemaeorum. The Doctrine
of the most ancient poets. Physical causes
of Myths. Use of History. Invention of
Bread. Some ancient beginnings of Greek
Legislation. Fifteen Prolusions on the states
of Magna Graecia and Sicily. On the Arca-
dians more ancient than the Moon. Life of
the most ancient Greeks. Leo the Pope and
Attila. Epidemic Fever of Rome called
plagues. Rise, decline and fall of Mace-
donia. Athenian liberty as seen in Aris-
tophanes. Natural History in prodigies.
Disease of Proselytising. Critique or Char-
acteristic of Symmachus; of Ausonius; of
Ammianus Marcellinus; of six writers of
Augustus' history (historiae Augustae?);
of panegyric-writers &c. Alexander Severus.

Heyne was born at Chemnitz (the birth-
place of Puffendorf) in 1729; his father was
the poorest of weavers. The history of the
man was a series of misery (he at one time
lived on pease-cods and had no bed), till
towards the middle of it; and all along of
most wonderful diligence. He died in 181 2.
Little representation of his character comes
of this Biography by Heeren his son-in-law,
who seems to be no very deep person. Heyne
it appears was a sharp-tempered, but good-
hearted, peaceable, methodical and well-

116

THOMAS CARLYLE.

beloved man. Not great but large. I know
only his Virgil, which certainly appeared to
me to leave all other commentaries of the sort
I had seen very far behind it. The Homer
I long to see. — O that I could read it! 1

Schlozer, Spittler, Gatterer, Martens, Wolt-
mann, — mostly men of mould, — are com-
memorated in the same vol. with Heyne.
They were all Gottingen Professors; for a
time at least, for in Germany that class of
men is essentially wandering. Spittler's little
book on Church history is highly praised.
Martens wrote on trade; and collected a
body of Fcedera from 1761 to 1819, which
must be very useful. Schlozer was a Jour-
nalist ; the first public whig in Germany : he
writes of Russia, where he once lived. Gat-
terer, a strange old virtuoso, wrote various
chronologies, universal-history essays or com-
pendiums; it seems on a greatly improved
plan. He is said to have been in the habit
of getting all the newspapers of the year col-
lected sometime in December, and then read-
ing them at one fell swoop. Ex uno.

Muller is also sketched here ; not well.

Is it not singular that so many men of note

1 In 1828 Carlyle wrote an admirable account of Heyne,
mainly derived from Heeren's Life of him. It appeared
in the " Foreign Review," No. 4. See Essays, Vol. i.

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should have been produced or gathered at
Gottingen? Mosheim — Blumenbach. These
Germans put us to shame! We have lost
our old honesty ; even in literature we are
eye-servants. Go thou, and do otherwise /

Michaud Histoire des Croisades (recom-
mended — 4 me edit.)

Beck's Repertorium is unspeakably stupid.

Der liebste Bube den wir han
Der liegt in unserm Keller,
Er hat ein holzin Rocklein an,
Und heisst der Muskateller. 1

From "Ballhorn" golden A. B. C.
Horn i. p. 88

Erasmus belongs to that species of writers
who with all their heart would build the good
God a most sumptuous church ; at the same
time however, not giving the Devil any of-
fence; to whom accordingly they set up a
neat little chapel close by, where you can
offer him some touch of sacrifice by a time,
and practice a quiet household devotion for
him without disturbance.

Leser wie gefall ich Dir ?
Leser wie gefallst du mir ?
Reader, how lik'st thou me ?
Reader, how like I thee?

T. von Logau.
1 See p. (177) for translation of this quatrain.
Il8

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Der Mai.
Dieser Monat ist ein Kuss, den der Himmel

giebt der Erde,
Dass sie, jetzo eine Braut, kunftig eine Mutter

werde ' 1 The same.

Andreas Gryph died of apoplexy in the
Council where he was syndic at Glogau.
Mem. Must read Mignet's French Revol.

The Palm is said to make saws and hatchets
blunt: hence came it to be a symbol of
Peace.

Wolff's most characteristic writing is said
to be: Vernunftige Gedanken von Gott, der
Welt und der Seele des Menschen. Halle.
1720.

Picinelli Mundus Symbolicus j a book of
mottoes.

Works which I could like to see written :

1. A Biography and History of Luther;
a picture of the great man himself, and of
the great scenes and age he lived in.

2. A History of English Literature ; from
the times of Chaucer! Warton's Hist, of
Eng. Poet, would do something in the way

1 "May.
' ' This month is a kiss, which Heaven gives to the Earth,
That she, now a Bride, may in time become a Mother."

119

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of help, but nothing as a model. The men
ought to be judged, not prated of; and the
whole environment of their talent, as well
as their talent itself, set fairly before the
reader.

3. Failing which, I reckon one of the fin-
est Essays of an aesthetic sort that could be
written, were an intelligible account of
Shakespeare. How did that wonderful
being live and think and write ? We treat
him commonly as a miracle, and launch out
into vague admiration of him, out of which
comes nothing. A miracle he was not, ex-
cept as genius is always a miracle ; but a man
that was born and bred as other men, and
lived in a strange shrivelled little brick-house,
which I have seen at Stratford on Avon ; the
one end of which, repaired and new-bediz-
ened was then (1825) inhabited by a —
Butcher. Would I saw the Poet and knew
him, and could then fully understand him !

Luther's Werke, herausgegeben von Walch,
1724.

Mascov's Geschichte der Deutschen;

Biinau's Teutsche Kaiser-und-Reichshis-
torie ; best books of that sort (says Horn) at
their time.

Should see Moser : why have I not cata-
logue ?

Dr. Althofs Life of Burger.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

On the silk-worm : —
Arte mea pereo, tumulum mihi fabricor ipse :
Fila mei fati duco, necemque neo. 1

Miller (of Gottingen's ?) Siegwart the be-
ginning of the sentimental period.

The two Stolbergs — F. Leopold became
a Catholic. Jung (Stilling's) Selbstbiogra-
phie. Matt. Claudius; the Wandsbecker
Bote. — Lichtenberg's writings —

Johann Christian Brandes, Autobiography;
said to be interesting.

Die Tugend ist das hochste Gut,
Das Laster Weh dem Menschen thut. 2
Puppenspieler Jahrm arktfest.

i. Weisheit auf der Strasse, a Book of
Proverbs, relating many of them to the time
of the Reformation.

2. Moser, Osnabricckische Geschichtej a very
good history. Fantasiefistucke, by the same.

3. Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstauffen ;
said to be very good.

4. Ritter a writer on statistics, of great
merit; professor at Berlin.

These four recommended by Mr. Aitken.

1 " By my own art I die, for myself I make my tomb ;
I spin the thread of my own fate, and weave my own
death."

2 " Virtue is the highest good,
While Vice does harm to man."

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With regard to the right and left bank of
a river, you keep your face down the stream.

Genus hominum, quod in civitate nostra
semper et retinebitur et vetabitur. — Tacitus. 1

A countryman [Bauer) one morning
knocked at Gellert's door, and asked if " he
was the man that wrote those fine Fables ? "
Being answered in the affirmative, the Bauer
added that " here was a cartload of wood
which he had brought to warm him thro'
winter, as an acknowledgement for the pleas-
ure he (the B.) had got from those writings; "
and so saying, he tumbled up his cargo of
billets, and with best compliments, took his
leave. This was worth a dozen Reviews.

Quicunque solitudine delectatur aut fera
aut deus est. 2

1 Mathematici ' ' genus hominum . . . quod in civitate
nostra et vetabitur semper, et retinebitur." Hist. i. 22.
" Astrologers, a class of men which will always be pro-
hibited in our city and always maintained."

2 Bacon begins his essay "Of Friendship" with the
words : "It had been hard for him that spake it to have
put more truth and untruth together in few words, than
in that speech, Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either
a wild beast or a god." The adages which follow are cited
in the same essay. Bacon's reference was undoubtedly
to the well-known passage in Aristotle, Politics, i. 2,
which is to the effect that "he who is unable to live in

122

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Magna civitas, magna solitude 1
Cor ne edito (eat not your heart), Pythag.
(These are from Bacon.)

Stag-heads in Fontainebleau under which
stood inscribed ; " Louis so-and-so did me
the honour to shoot me." Richter, Levana.

Turba medicorum perdidit Caesarem. 2

Hadrian's epitaph.

Anton, Geschichte der Deutsche Nation.
Schmidt's "

Levesque, Moralistes anciens.
(Somebody's) " " Francais.
Suard, Melanges Litteraires.
Duval, Memoires surle royaume de Naples.
Varillas, Histoire secrete de la Maison de
Medicis.

Tasso's Essay Del Poema Eroico. 3

society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for
himself, must be either a beast or a god," — but Bacon
gives the words a false turn, and then proceeds to argue,
on the basis of his own error, against the position which
he ascribes to Aristotle. Carlyle had obviously been
reading the essay in the Latin translation published by
Dr. Rawley in 1638.
1 " A great town is a great solitude."

2 " The crowd of doctors killed Caesar."

3 In a letter to his brother John, Oct. 25, 1827, Car-
lyle wrote : " Meanwhile I am beginning (purpose seri-
ously beginning to-morrow) an article on Zacharias
Werner ... I design afterwards, if Jeffrey is willing, to

123

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Ultimate object of the Poet is to profit
(prodesse as superordma.te to delectare). p.
350. — very clear and logical, giovar dilet-
tando.

(An Historian must write (so to speak) in
lines ; but every event is a superficies / nay
if we search out its causes, a solid : hence a
primary and almost incurable defect in the
art of Narration; which only the very best
can so much as approximately remedy. —
N. B. I understand this myself. I have known
it for years; and written it now, with the
purpose perhaps of writing it at large else-
where.) 1

Curious (p. 367) division of Theology.
The mistico much the same as Vernunft? 2

Instar omnium Plato, said Antimachus

Clarius, when only this one vote went in his

favour; " Plato is worth them all." 3

give a Discourse on Tasso." Letters, i. 90. The arti-
cle on Werner was written, and is to be found in Car-
lyle's Essays ; the proposed discourse on Tasso seems
not to have been accomplished.

IThis purpose was fulfilled in his paper "On His-
tory" published in Fraser's Magazine, in 1830. See
Essays, ii. 258.

2 For the definition of Vernunft "Reason," as used
by the Kantists, and its relation to Mysticism, see " State
of German Literature" (1827), Essays, i. 69.

3 — " dixisse Antimachum, Clarium poetam, ferunt, qui
quum convocatis auditoribus legeret eis magnum illud,
quod novistis, volumen suum, et eum legentem omnes,
praeter Platonem, reliquissent, ' Legam ' inquit ' nihilo
minus; Plato enim mihi unus instar est omnium mil-
Hum.' " Cicero, Brutus, 51.

124

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Convien cWuom poggt ; man should ascend.

I have gone over (not regularly read) the
Essay Del Poema Eroico. Must not say that
I have derived any benefit from it generally ;
or even specially any great insight into the
individuality of Tasso himself. It is unspeak-
ably diffuse, and appeals to no principles of a
scientific sort; the main source of his light
being Aristotle and the practice of ancient
poets. One gathers only that he was a seri-
ous man, and had high views of the dignity
and moment of Epic poetry; tho' how from
so complicated and generally so barren a
system of rules he modulated so harmonious
a whole as the Gerusalemme seems nowise
clear. — On the whole I have not strength to
study Tasso at present, nor even to express
what I have studied concerning him.

Tasso was a mystic, as we should call him :
Must not every true poet be so ? That is to-
say, must he not have a sense of the Invisible
Existences of Nature, and be enabled as it
were to read the symbols of these in the vis-
ible ? Can any man delineate with life the
figure even of a Trinculo or Caliban other-
wise ? For is not the poorest nature a mys-
tery ; the most grovelling street-porter, the
most arid Kanzlerverwandte a type in some
obscurer sense and an emanation from the
Land of wonders ? Is he not an individual;
and who shall explain all the significance of

125

NOTE BOOK OF

that one word ? — Not one of Scott's Fair-
services or Deanses &c. is alive. As far as prose
could go, he has gone ; and we have fair out-
sides ; but within all is rather hollow, nicht
wahr ? — Alas! I do not see into this, and
must talk rather falsely of it, or " altogether
hold my peace," which perhaps were better. —
Jan y 8 th 1828.—

La Bruyere I have found, for the second
time, strive as I might, exceedingly shallow.
" He has point and brilliancy ; but so has a
brass pin." — Yet I do not know the French :
what do I know ? —

The courtesies of polished life too often
amount to little more than this: "Sir, you
and I care not two brass farthings the one
for the other, we have and can have no
friendship for each other or for aught else in
nature ; nevertheless let us enact it, if we can-
not practise it ; do you tell so many lies, and
I shall tell so many, and depend on it the
result will be of great service to both. For
is not this December weather very cold?
And tho' our grates are full of ice, yet if you
keep a picture of fire before yours, and I
another before mine, will not this be next to
a real coal-and-wood affair ?

Goethe has been called ill-bred, a low and
vulgar man by certain British Critics. He is

126

THOMAS CARLYLE.

of all past and present writers the farthest
from this. Except himself, I might say, there
is no man of books known to me, who can
delineate a Gentleman, or even so much as
conceive him. Scott goes as far as the Up-
holsterer and Gentleman-Usher go; but little
farther : his highest gentleman (at all events)
might be a writer to the Signet : Bonaparte
himself becomes a sort of Parliamenteering,
game-preserving, Road-commissioning Coun-
try-Squire in his hands. Put together a Gen-
tleman as e.g. Burns can put together a
Peasant ! They give us a sort of shell of one ;
but the kernel is not there.

What is the unhappiest quality in man ?
For his moral worth, malignity (excess of em-
ulation corrupted)) for his civic prosperity,
irresolution. How long halt ye between two
opinions ?

To be read :

Mill's History of Chivalry.
" " Crusades.
i( Theodore Ducas ?
Sharon Turner's Anglo-Saxons.
" " England.

" Henry VIII.
Works of Ritson (never seen by me)
Percy's Relicks (almost forgotten)
Ellis I have read and partly esteemed.
127

NOTE BOOK OF

What of all these Memoirs by Lucy Aikin,
Miss Benger, and Mrs. Thomson ? I will
take down their names.

Lucy A's Queen Elizabeth.

" " King James I.
Miss B's Queen of Bohemia (Eliz. Stuart)
" " Mary Q. of Scots
" " Anne Boleyn.
" « Henri IV. [II. ?]
" " Mrs. Hamilton.
" " Mr. Tobin.
Mrs. TVs Henry VIII.

The Saxon Chronicle (translated) by J.
Ingram.

Coxe's Memoirs of Duke Marlborough.
" " " Sir R. Walpole.

Goethe (Dichtung und Wahrheit II. 14)
asserts that the sublime is natural to all young
persons and peoples ; but that day-light (of
reason) destroys it, unless it can unite itself
with the Beautiful, in which case it remains
indestructible. — A fine obs.

p. 39. Grotius said he read Terence other-
wise than Boys do. " Happy limitedness of
youth ! nay of men in general, that at all mo-
ments of their existence they can look upon
themselves as complete; and ask neither for
the True nor the False, the High nor the
Deep, but simply what is suitable to them."

128

THOMAS CARLYLE.

— Alles was daher von mir bekannt ge-
worden sind nur Bruchstiicke einer grossen
Confession, welche vollstandig zu machen
dieses Buchlein ein gewagter Versuch ist.
p. 109. — x

Banier's Mythology.

Finished a Paper on Burns. September
16, 1828; at this Devil's Den, Craigenput-
tock.

Ersch his Handbuch der deutschen Liter-
atur seit der Mitte des i8 ten Jahrh. bis auf die
neueste Zeit. 2 Bde. Amsterdam & Leip-
zig. 1812-14. There has been a second and
better Edition.

1 Das Kind mit dem Bade ausgeschiittet ! '
— Killed instead of curing ? [" Fling out not
the dirty water only but y r washed child/"
A very pretty proverb.] 2

Der Deutsche Improvisator ? Two Books
of him published at Gera. The man Goethe
speaks of?

F. SchlegePs Philosophy of Life. Literat.
Zeit. Marz, 462. rather sensible.

1 " All my pieces which have thus become known are
only fragments of a great confession which this little
book is a venturesome attempt to make complete."

2 " The Germans say, You must empty out the bath-
ing-tub, but not the baby along with it." ' Nigger Ques-
tion,' 1849. Essays, vii. 97.

9 129

NOTE BOOK OF

Camillo Ugoni Hist, of Italian Literature
— goodish? 175-1800 is its Spielraum. 1

Corniani has also written a Secoli della Let.
It. in nine volumes.

Giuseppe Tartini Italian Fiddler dreamed
one night that he had made a paction with
the Devil, who ' did, nay surpassed ' all his
bidding. In particular he (the Devil) played
(by request) such a Sonata as for beauty was
never played before; the ravishments of which
indeed woke poor Tartini, who clutching his
fiddle tried at least to retain some tones of
this Devil's Sonata; but almost in vain, so
unearthly was it. However he did what he
could j and his best is still called the Devil's
Sonata. Beppo died at Padua 1770.

Boscovich died mad! 1787.

Passeroni cooked for himself — in Milan;
an old woman made his bed : he himself was
to be seen with cap and apron. He wrote a
Poem [//] Cicerone in six volumes, containing
11,047 stanzas (octave). This great and very
good humoured Author died — perhaps about
1800.

Baretti was born at Turin (1719). Would
not be an Architect, and so ran off from home
at the age of 16. London (1757) — from
Venice. — He travelled thro' Spain and Por-
tugal home (1760); but came back to Lon-

l "Area."
130

THOMAS CARLYLE.

don, where he died (1789). Three fellows,
(robbers seemingly) attacked him on the
street (of L.) and he killed one of them with
a silver knife (!) Burke, Reynolds, Johnson,
Fitzherbert (quotha) got him off. His works
are

Frusta Litteraria (Literary Scourge).

The Italians.

Travels. Discorso on Shakesp.

&c. partly in Italian, partly in English. He
is a rugged hard keen man — as his Diet, it-
self shows. 1

Galiani, a Neapolitan Abb6 — See Grimm.

Gries has translated Tasso, Ariosto, Cal-
deron — the latter as I partly know well.

Palestrina, Scarlatti. Italian (earliest)
musicians.

Handel, Bach, Hasse.

Darstellungen aus der Geschichte der Mu-
sik, by Krause — Gottingen.

Millot, Histoire Litt6raire des Trouba-
dours.

Raynouard, Choix des Poesies des Tr.

Geschichte der Jungfrau von Orleans by
Fouque" — 1826. Berlin, 2 vol.

1 Boswell has conferred immortality on Baretti, by the
frequent mention of him in his Life of Johnson.

131

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Et sibi res non se rebus submittere tentat.

(Hor.) 1
Piece a iiroir ; a Play of detached scenes.

Has the mind its cycles and seasons like Na-
ture, varying from the fermentation oiwerden 2
to the clearness of seyny 3 and this again and
again ; so that the history of a man is like the
history of the world he lives in ? In my own
case, I have traced two or three such vicissi-
tudes : at present if I mistake not, there is
some such thing at hand for me. Feb y 1829.

Above all things, I should like to know
England, the essence of social life in this
same little Island of ours. But how ? No
one that I speak to can throw light on it;
not he that has worked and lived in the
midst of it for half a century. The blind
following the blind! Yet each cries out:
What a glorious sunshine we have ! The
1 old Literature ' only half contents me : it is
ore and not metal. I have not even a history
of the country, half precise enough. With
Scotland, it is little better. To me there is

1 The verse in Horace runs :

Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor.

Epist., i. i. 19.
" I strive to master things, not let them master me."
Compare Emerson's

" Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind."

2 " Becoming." 3 " Being."

132

THOMAS CARLYLE.

nothing poetical in Scotland, but its Religion.
Perhaps because I know nothing else so well.
England with its old Chivalry, Art and
' creature comfort ' looks beautiful, but only
as a cloud-country, the distinctive features
of which are all melted into one gay sunny
mass of hues. After all, we are a world
'within ourselves'; a 'self-contained house.'

The English have never had an Artist, ex-
cept in Poetry ; no Musician, no Painter; Pur-
cell (was he a native? 1 ) and Hogarth are not
exceptions, or only such as confirm the rule.

He who would understand England must
understand her Church, for that is half of the
whole matter. Am I not conscious of a
prejudice on that side ? Does not the very
sight of a shovel-hat in some degree indis-
pose me to the wearer thereof? shut up my
heart against him ? This must be looked in-
to : without love there is no knowledge. 2

Do I not also partly despise partly hate
the Aristocracy of Scotland ? I fear, I do,
tho' under cover. This too should be rem-
edied. — On the whole, I know little of the
Scottish Gentleman ; and more than enough

1 Purcell was born in Westminster.

2 This thought is more fully written out in ' Biography '
(1832). Essays, iv. 62.

133

NOTE BOOK OF

of the Scottish Gigman. — All are not mere
rent- gatherers and game-preservers.

Have the Scottish Gentry lost their na-
tional character of late years, and become
mere danglers in the train of the wealthier
English ? Scott has seen certain characters
among them ; of which I hitherto have not
heard of any existing specimen.

Is the true Scotchman the Peasant and Yeo-
an ; chiefly the former ?

Shall we actually go and ride thro' England
to see it ? Mail-coaches are a mere mockery.

A national character, that is, the descrip-
tion of one, tends to realize itself, as some pro-
phecies have produced their own fulfilment.
Tell a man that he is brave, and you help
him to become so. The ' national charac-
ter ' hangs like a pattern in every head ; each
sensibly or insensibly shapes himself thereby,
and feels pleased when he can in any meas-
ure realize it.

Is the characteristic strength of England
its Love of Justice, its deep-seated, univer-
sally-active sense of Fair Play? — On many
points it seems to be a very stupid people;

i34

THOMAS CARLYLE.

but seldom a hide-bound, bigoted, altogether
unmanageable and unaddressable people.

The Scotch have more enthusiasm and
more consideration; that is, at once, more
sail and ballast : they seem to have a deeper
and richer character as a nation. — The old
Scottish music, our Songs &c., are a highly-
distinctive feature.

Must see Southey's Book of the Church &
Tytler's History of Scotland. Also Sir W.
Scott's Tales of a Grandfather.

Read Novalis Schriften for the second time
some weeks ago, and wrote a Review of them.
A strange, mystic, unfathomable Book ; but
full of matter for most earnest meditation.
What is to become (next) of the world and
the sciences thereof? Rather, what is to be-
come of thee and thy science ? Thou longest
to act among thy fellow men, and canst (yet)
scarcely breathe among them.

Friedrich Schlegel dead at Dresden on
the 9 th of January! — Poor Schlegel what
toilsome seeking was thine: thou knowest
now whether thou hadst found — or thou
carest not for knowing !

What am I to say of Voltaire ? (His name
i35

NOTE BOOK OF

has stood at the top of a sheet for three days,
and no other word !) Writing is a dreadful
Labour; yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

Every living man is a visible mystery : he
walks between two Eternities and two Infini-
tudes (said already I) 1 — Were we not blind as
moles we should value our Humanity at x,
and our Rank, Influence &c. (the trappings
of our Humanity), at o. Say, I am a man;
and you say all : whether King or Tinker is
a mere appendix. — (" very true, Mr. Carlyle,
but then " — we must believe Truth and prac-
tise Error ?)— 2

— Pray that your eyes be opened, that you
may see what is before them ! The whole world
is built as it were, on Light and Glory; only
that our spiritual eye must discern it : to the
bodily eye Self is as a perpetual blinder, and
we see nothing but darkness and contradic-
tion.

Luther, says Melanchthon, would often, tho'
in robust health, go about ioxfour days eating
and drinking — nothing! — "Vidi continuis
quatuor diebus, cum quidem recte valeret,

1 " In any point of Space, in any section of Time, let
there be a living man ; and there is an infinitude above
him and beneath him, and an Eternity encompasses him
on this hand and on that." ' State of German Literature,'
Essays, i, 73.

2 In this paragraph lies the germ of Sartor Resartus.

1 36

THOMAS CARLYLE.

prorsus nihil edentem aut bibentem. Vidi
saepe alias multis diebus quotidie exiguo pane
et halece contentum esse" — content for many
days with a little piece of bread and herring.
O tempora ! O mores !

Luther's last words :

" ' Mein himmlischer Vater, ewiger barm-
herziger Gott, du hast mir deinen lieben Sohn,
unsern Herrn Jhesum Christum offenbaret;
den hab ich geleret, den hab ich bekandt,
den liebe ich und den ehre ich fur meinen
lieben Heiland und Erloser, welchen die
Gottlosen verfolgen, schenden und schelten.
Nim meine Seele zu dir.' Then he repeated
thrice : ' In manus tuas commendo Spiritum
meum; redemisti me, Deus veritatis. Also
hat Gott die Welt geliebet ' x &c. repeating these
prayers several times, he was called away by
God into his eternal school, and eternal bless-
edness; where he enjoys the presence of the
Father, Son, Holy Ghost; of all the Prophets
and Apostles. Ah! the chariot and chari-

l"My heavenly Father, eternal and merciful God,
Thou hast revealed to me thy dear Son, whom I have
followed and known, and whom I love and honor as my
beloved Saviour and Redeemer, whom the godless per-
secute, revile and abuse. Take Thou my soul to Thy-
self"

" Into thine hand I commit my spirit; Thou hast re-
deemed me, O Lord God of truth." (Psalm xxxi. 5.)

" God so loved the world." (John hi. 16.)

137

NOTE BOOK OF

oteer of Israel is departed; he who guided
the church in this last old age of the world."
— Melanchthonis (p. 33.) de vita Martini Lu-
theri Narratio — a very brief, meagre, and
unsatisfactory performance. I must try to
see Seckendorf Historia Luth. (a large Latin
book, but said to be authentic). —

Keil's Leben der Aeltern Luther's.

KeiFs M. Luther's merkw. Lebensum-
stdnde.

" Ich bin eines Bauern Sohn," says Luther.
" Mein Vater, Grossvater, Ahnherr sind rechte
Bauern gewest. Darnach ist mein Vater gen
Mansfeld gezogen, und daselbst ein Berghauer
geworden." 1 Luther used to say, in miner
fashion, to the last: wohlauf 1 instead of
wohlan /

Mathesii Histor. Luth. (ed. 1576).

Motschmanus in his Erfordia literata (Lit-
erary Erfurt) has diligently narrated Luther's
proceedings while in that town — as student
and monk.

Luther was a monk for fifteen years : " Ein
frommer Munch bin ich gewesen, und habe
so theure meinen Orden gehalten dass ich
sagen darf, ist jemahls ein Munch gen Him-
mel gekommen durch Miincherey, so wollte

l " I am a peasant's son. My father, grandfather, and
forefather were mere peasants. After a time my father
went to Mansfeld, and there became a miner."

138

THOMAS CARLYLE.

ich auch hinein gekommen seyn. Dies wer-
den mir zeugen alle meine Kloster-Gesellen de
mich gekennet haben. Denn ich hatte mich,
wo es langer gewahret hatte, zu Tode gemar-
tert mit Wachen, Beten, Lesen und anderer
Arbeit." 1

Luther was born Nov. io*. 11 1483; he died
Feb. 18* 1546 — aged 63: his disease was
Cardiaca (the last fit, apparently some sort of
Colic.)

Tetzel's business came on 15 17 — when L.
was 34 years old. Worms Diet 38.

Luther's character appears to me the most
worth discussing of all modern men's. He
is, to say it in a word, a great man in every
sense; has the soul at once of a Conqueror
and a Poet. His attachment to Music is to
me a very interesting circumstance: it was
the channel for many of his finest emotions ;
for which words, even words of prayer, were
but an ineffectual exponent. Is it true that
he did leave Wittenberg for Worms 'with
nothing but his Bible and his Flute ' ? There
is no scene in European History so splendid

1 " I was a pious Monk, and held my Rule so dear that
I venture to say that if ever a monk got to Heaven
through monkery, I ought to have got there. All my
cloister companions who have known me will testify this
of me. For I should have tormented myself to death,
if it had lasted much longer, with vigils, prayers, read-
ings, and other labor."

139

NOTE BOOK OF

and significant. — I have long had a sort of
notion to write some life or characteristic of
Luther. A picture of the public Thought in
those days, and of this strong lofty mind over-
turning and new-moulding it, would be a fine
affair in many senses. It would require im-
mense research. — Alas ! alas ! — When are
we to have another Luther ? Such men are
needed from century to century : there seldom
has been more need of one than now.

Wrote a Paper on Voltaire for the Foreign
Review (sometime in March & April 1829).
It appears to have given some (very slight)
satisfaction : pieces of it breathe afar off the
right spirit of composition. When shall I
attain to write wholly in that spirit ?

Paper on Novalis for F. R. just published ;
written last January amid the frosts. Gener-
ally poor. Novalis is an Anti-Mechanist;
a deep man; the most perfect of modern
spirit-seers. I thank him for somewhat.

Also just finished an Article on the Signs
of the Times, for the Edf Review; as Jeffrey's
last speech. 1 Bad in general ; but the best I
could make it under such incubus influences.

1 Jeffrey was on the point of giving up the editorship
of the Edinburgh Review.

140

THOMAS CARLYLE.

(August 5. To see Jeffrey at Dumfries the
day after to-morrow).

Every age appears surprising and full of
vicissitudes to those that live therein ; as in-
deed it is and must be: vicissitudes from
Nothingness to Existence ; and from the tu-
multuous wonders of Existence forward to the
still wonders of Death.

Politics are not our Life (which is the prac-
tice and contemplation of Goodness), but
only the house wherein that Life is led. Sad
duty that lies on us to parget and continually
repair our houses: saddest of all when it
becomes our sole duty.

An Institution (a Law of any kind) may
become a deserted edifice; the walls stand-
ing, no life going on within, but that of bats,
owls and unclean creatures. It will then be
pulled down if it stand interrupting any thor-
oughfare ; if it do not so stand, people may
leave it alone till a grove of .natural wood
grow round it, and no eye but that of the ad-
venturous antiquarian may know of its exist-
ence, such a tangle of brush is to be struggled
thro' before it can be come at and viewed.

All Language but that concerning sensual
141

NOTE BOOK OF

objects is or has been figurative. 1 Prodigious
influence of metaphors ! Never saw into it
till lately. A truly useful and philosophical
work would be a good Essay on Metaphors.
Some day I will write one !

Begin to think more seriously of discussing
Martin Luther. The only Inspiration I
know of is that of Genius : it was, is, and
will always be of a divine character.

Wonderful Universe ! Were our eyes but
opened, what a ' secret' were it that we
daily see and handle, without heed !

Understanding is to Reason as the talent
of a Beaver (which can build houses, and uses
its tail for a trowel) to the genius of a Prophet
and Poet. Reason is all but extinct in this
age : it can never be altogether extinguished. 2

Books :
Must see Thomas a Kempis.

1 " Examine Language ; what, if you except some few
primitive elements (of natural sound), what is it all but
Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recog-
nized: still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and
colourless ? " Sartor Resartus, Book i. ch. xi.

Sartor itself may be regarded as the fulfilment of the
intention one day to write ' a good Essay on Metaphors. '

2 Cf. "State of German Literature." (1827.) Essays,
i. 86.

142

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Webster's Dramatic Works.
Marston's do. (Never heard of him.)
Life of Sir T. More.

Thorns' Collection of Ancient English
fictions.
(One Nicholas Harris Nicolas seems to be
a determined English Antiquarian.)

(These Books are all in Pickering's List.)

What a strange thing is that Quarterly-
Review ! How insular, how lawn-sleeved !
What will the world come to ?

Das Seligseyn ist um eine Ewigkeit alter
als das Verdammtseyn. 1 — Jean Paul.

" The mixture of those things by speech
which by nature are divided is the mother of
all error." — Hooker, p. 61. —

Error of Political Economists about im-
proving waste lands as compared with manu-
facturing : the manufacture is worn and done
(the machine itself dies) ; the improved land
remains an addition to the Earth forever.
What is the amount of this error ? I see not ;
but reckon it something considerable.

Is it true that of all quacks that ever quacked
(boasting themselves to be somebody) in any

l " Salvation is by an Eternity older than Damnation."
143

NOTE BOOK OF

age of the world, the Political Economists of
this age are, for their intrinsic size, the loudest ?
Mercy on us what a quack-quacking; and their
egg (even if not a wind one) is of value simply
one half-penny ! —

Their whole Philosophy (!) is an Arithmeti-
cal Computation — performed in words ; re-
quires therefore the intellect not of Socrates
or Shakespear but of Cocker or Dil worth.
Even if it were right ! which it scarcely ever
is, for they miss this or the other item, do as
they will, and must return to practice and
take the low posteriori road after all.

The question of money-making, even of
National Money-making, is not a high but a
low one : as they treat it, among the lowest.
Could they tell us how wealth is and should be
distributed, it were something; but they do
not attempt it. Political Philosophy ! Pol.
Ph. should be a scientific revelation of the
whole secret mechanism whereby men cohere
together in society; should tell us what is
meant by "country" {patria), by what causes
men are happy, moral, religious, or the con-
trary : instead of all which, it tells us how
"flannel jackets" are exchanged for "pork
hams," and speak much about the "land last
taken into cultivation." They are the hod-
men of the intellectual edifice, who have got
upon the wall, and will insist on building, as
if they were masons.

144

THOMAS CARLYLE.

The Utilitarians are the " crowning mercy "
of this age : the summit (now first appearing
to view) of a mass of tendencies which stretch
downwards and spread sidewards over the
whole intellect and moral of the time. By
and by, the clouds will disperse, and we shall
see it all, in dead nakedness and brutishness ;
and Utilitaria will pass away with a great
noise. You think not ? — Can the Reason of
man be trodden under foot forever by his
sense; can the Brute in us prevail forever
over the angel ! — x

The Devil has his Elect. 2

Pero digan lo que quisieren (los historia-
dores) que desnudo naci, desnudo me hallo,
ni pierdo ni gano, aunque por verme puesto
in libros y andar por ese mundo de mano en
mano, no se me da un higo que digan de
mi todo lo que quisieren. — says Sancho —
Quixote 4. 117. 3

1 Compare with this passage, Sartor Resartus , Book iii.
ch. vi.

I " Let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and live at
ease on the fat things he has provided for his Elect."
Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. vii.

3 " But let them [the historians] say what they will, for
naked was I born, naked I am, I neither lose nor gain,
and though I find myself put into books, and passing
from hand to hand through the world, I care not a fig,
let them say of me what they will." Don Quixote, Part
ii, ch. 8.

10 145

NOTE BOOK OF

What is the Censura Literaria ?
Granger's Biographical History of England.

"The wishers and woulders were never
good householders." — Greene (in Drake 1 ).
" Hell is paved with good resolutions."

This is the only way to make a woman

dum :
To sit and smile and laugh her out and

not a word but mum.

L[eonard] Wright (from D[rake].) 2

Capel LoffVs Aphorisms of Shakespeare.
Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature (and)
Scarce Books.

Oldys' British Librarian.

Brady's Clavis Calendaria.

Brand (or Bourne's) Popular Antiquities.

Burnett's Specim. Eng. Prose writers.

Orford's Royal & Noble Authors.

Die Moncherei oder geschichtliche Dar-

1 " Drake " refers to the well-known " Shakespeare and
his Times," by Nathan Drake, London, 1817. 2 vols.,
4to. The saying here cited (vol. i, p. 490) is from
Greene's tract, entitled " Never Too Late," 1590.
Greene says " thinking this old sentence to be true The
wishes, etc." He writes it as prose, but it must originally
have been a couplet, "woulders" written and pro-
nounced after the 16th century fashion " wolders, " rhym-
ing with "holders."

2 Id., p. 513. The couplet is from Wright's " Display
of Dutie," 1589.

146

THOMAS CARLYLE.

stellung des Klosterwelt (Stuttgard, 1820,
3 Bde.)

See also Hermes no. 15. for a Review of it.

Dr. Berkenhout (the English son of a
Dutch Leeds merchant) has published a 4 to
vol. which treats of the Lit. Hist, of Eng-
land, prior to Elizabeth; with what merit I
know not.

It is the sharpest (black) Frost I have seen
for some years. 14? 1 Jan? 1830. — I am quite
idle. Eheu !

My worthy Uncle " Sandy " is dead, and
to be buried to-morrow " The heaviest-laden
wayfarer at length lays down his load." Un-
cle Sandy's widow survived him but a week ;
their eldest son lay sick of fever, and at the
time insensible. 1

The week following died my Aunt Mary
(Stewart), after eight years of ill health and
weary dreary Death-in-Life.

March I am occupied writing a

(perhaps 1st.) History of German Litera-
ture (save the mark!) which
will nowise fashion itself into any shape
in my hands. 2 Few men have attempted a

1 [Now (1866) J as Aitken, Husband of his cousin, my
sister Jean.]

2 In October, 1829, the proposal had come to Carlyle,
already known, by his Life of Sqhiller and by articles in

H7

NOTE BOOK OF

compilation under such circumstances: no
Books, continual disappointments from Book-
agents, etc., etc. But what boots complain-
ing? Bear a hand, and let us do our best;
the strongest can do no better.

Does it seem hard to thee that thou
shouldst toil, in dullness, sickness, isolation ?
Whose lot is not even this ? Toil, then, et
tais-toi.

Either I am degenerating into a caput
moriuum, and shall never think another rea-
sonable thought; or some new and deeper
view of the world is about to arise in me.
Pray Heaven, the latter ! It is dreadful to
live without vision: where there is no light
the people perish. —

With considerable sincerity I can pray at
this moment : Grant me, O Father, enough
of wisdom to live well ; prosperity to live
happily (easily) grant me or not, as Thou

the Foreign and Foreign Quarterly Review, to be compe-
tent for the task, to write a History of German Litera-
ture, for publication in the series of volumes of the
Cabinet Cyclopcedia. His plan for it is set forth at length
in a letter to Goethe of May 23, 1830. The first volume
was then complete. But on August 31, he writes that
the plan had fallen through, after he had brought down
the narrative, in the space of a volume and a half, to the
Reformation. See Correspondence between Goethe and
Carlyle, pp. 159, 187, 207. The book was never com-
pleted. Some parts were made into independent articles
and printed in the Reviews ; of these were the essays on
" The Nibelungen Lied," and on " Early German Liter-
ature," which are now to be found in Carlyle's Essays.

148

THOMAS CARLYLE.

seest best. — A poor faint prayer, as such, yet
surely a kind of wish ; as indeed it has gen-
erally been with me : and now a kind of
comfort to feel it still in my otherwise too
withered heart. —

I am a ' dismembered limb • ; and feel it
again too deeply. 1 Was I ever other? Stand
to it tightly, man; and do thy utmost. Thou
hast little or no hold on the world; promo-
tion will never reach thee; nor true fellow-
ship with any active body of men : but hast
thou not still a hold on Thyself? Ja, beym
Himmel! —

Religion, as Novalis hints, is a, social
thing. Without a Church there can be lit-
tle or no Religion. The action of mind on
mind is mystical, infinite ; Religion, worship
can hardly (perhaps not at all) support itself
without this aid. The derivation of Schwdr-
merey indicates some notion of this in the
Germans. To schwdrmen (to be enthusias-
tic) means, says Coleridge, to swarm, to
crowd together, and excite one another. —

What is the English of all quarrels that
have been are or can be between man and
man ? Simply this : Sir you are taking more

l " For thee the Family of Man has no use ; it rejects
thee ; thou art wholly as a dissevered limb ; so be it ;
perhaps it is better so ! "

Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. viii.

149

NOTE BOOK OF

than your share of Pleasure in this world,
something from my share ; and by the gods,
you shall not; nay I will fight you rather.
Alas ! and the whole lot to be divided is
such a beggarly account of empty boxes;
truly a 'feast of shells,' not eggs, for the
yolks have all been blown out of them ! Not
enough to fill half a stomach, and the whole
human species famishing to be at them ! Bet-
ter we should say to our Brother : Take it,
poor fellow, take that larger share, which I
reckon mine, and which thou so wantest :
take it with a blessing : would to Heaven I
had but enough for thee! 1 — This is the
Moral of the Christian Religion : how easy
to write, how hard to practice ! (Suggested
itself one wet evening, on the Trailtrow
moss, 2 as I came from Annan, in 1825 ; or
perhaps I only mentioned it to Jack then,
as a thing I had lately seen. — I love to be
particular.)

I have now almost done with the Ger-
mans. Having seized their opinions, I must
turn me to inquire how true are they ? That
truth is in them, no lover of Truth will
doubt : but how much ? And after all, one
needs an intellectual Scheme (or ground plan

l The foregoing paragraph appears, with some verbal
changes, in Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. ix.
Near Ecclefechan. A. C.

150

THOMAS CARLYLE.

of the Universe) drawn with one's own in-
struments. —

I think I have got rid of Materialism:
Matter no longer seems to me so ancient,
so unsubduable, so certain and palpable as
Mind. / am Mind : whether matter or not
I know not — and care not. — Mighty glimpses
into the spiritual Universe I have sometimes
had (about the true nature of Religion, the pos-
sibility, after all, of ' supernatural' (really natu-
ral) influences &c. &c.) : would they could but
stay with me, and ripen into a perfect view !

— Miracle? What is a Miracle? 1 Can
there be a thing more miraculous than any
other thing ? I myself am a standing won-
der. It is 'the inspiration of the Almighty
that giveth us understanding.' —

What is Poetry? Do I really love Po-
etry ? I sometimes fancy almost, not. The
jingle of maudlin persons, with their mere
(even genuine) ' sensibility ' is unspeakably
fatiguing to me. My greatly most delightful
reading is, where some Goethe musically
teaches me. Nay, any fact, relating especi-
ally to man, is still valuable and pleasing. —

My Memory, which was one of the best,
has failed sadly of late years, (principally the
last two) : yet not so much by defect in the
faculty, I should say, as by want of earnest-

1 Cf. Sartor Resartus, Book iii. ch. viii. " What spe-
cially is a' Miracle ? "

151

t

NOTE BOOK OF

ness in using it. I attend to few things as I
was wont : few things have any interest for
me; I live in a sort of waking dream.

Doubtful it is in the highest degree, whether
ever I shall make men hear my voice to any
purpose or not. Certain only that I shall be
a failure if I do not, and unhappy: nay un-
happy enough (that is with suffering enough)
even if I do. My own talent I cannot in the
remotest attempt at estimating. Something su-
perior often does seem to be in me, and hitherto
the world has been very kind ; but many things
inferior also; so that I can strike no balance.
— Hang it, try ; and leave this Grubeln / %

What we have done is the only mirror that
can show us what we are.

One great desideratum in every society is
a man to hold his peace.

O Time, how thou fliest,
False heart, how thou liest ;
Leave chattering and fretting,
Betake thee to doing and getting !

I must have a whiff of tobacco, first ! God
help me !

Wer vom treuen stirbt, dem soil man mit
Furtzen zum Grab lauten (Epist. obs. viror.
l " Speculating."
152

THOMAS CARLYLE.

449). Wer vom Drauen stirbt, dem &c. mit
Fiirzen . . . lauten! ! ! — 1

Wrote a Letter to the Dumfries Courier,
about poor Tom Bell's Massacre at Knock-
hill, and the Public Prosecutor's neglect to
indict his Slayer. 2 Can say that I did it from
a feeling that it was necessary. Whether the
man will print it or not I shall know to-mor-
row; in the negative case, I must send it to
the Journal; and then have done with it. The
word is spoken, if they see good to shut the
public ear against it; a la bonne heure / I
have other work to follow.

1 These words may be found in Boecking's edition of
Hutten, Op. Suppl. i. 278, 11. 26 sqq. The context is as
follows : " Item Bilibaldus nescio quis, qui debet esse in
Nurmberga : ipse fecit multas minas dicens quod realiter
vult expedire Theologos scriptis suis. Tunc ego dixi :
' Qui moritur minis, Ille compulsabiturbombis,' few&w/V*,
Wer von trewen stirbt, den sol man mit furtzen zum grab
leutten." I owe this reference to my friend Professor
von Jagemann, who says : " The Latin context makes it
clear that Carlyle's second version was intended only as
a modernization of the first ; but even the first version is
in a form quite modern as compared with the original."
The words are too coarse to translate.

2 This letter is printed by Froude, Life, ii. ch. 3:
" The young man [Tom Bell] it appeared had been en-
gaged in some courtship with one of the maid servants of
the house ; had come that night to see her in the fashion
common, or indeed universal, with men of his station in
that quarter, was overheard by the butler, was challenged,
pursued, and, refusing to answer any interrogatory, but
hastening to escape, was shot dead by him on the spot."
Knockhill was near Ecclefechan.

153

NOTE BOOK OF

Got dreadfully ill on with a most tremen-
dous speculation on History, intended first
as an introduction to my German work ; then
found at last that it would not do there ; so
cut it out (after finishing it) and gave it to
my Wife.

I carry less weight now, and skim more
smoothly along (April 12): why cannot I
write books (of that kind) as I write letters ?
They are and will be of only temporary use.

A man writes me out of Kent (the Rev?
G. R. Gleig the " Subaltern" 1 ) wanting a Life
of Goethe ; then still more anxious for one of

1 The Subaltern, published in 1825, is a story founded
on incidents in the Peninsular War, in which Gleig had
served. The book was a good one of its kind, and
brought reputation to its author, who had left the army
and taken orders. In 1846 he became Chaplain-general
of the army. He died in 1885. The Lives which he
wanted were for some " Library of General Knowledge "
of which he was editor. In a letter to Eckermann of
March 20, 1830, Carlyle wrote: "The other day there
came a letter to me . . . earnestly requesting a ' Life
of Goethe.' Knowing my correspondent as a man of
some weight and respectability in literature, I have just
answered him that the making of Goethe known to Eng-
land was a task which any Englishman might be proud
of; but that, as for his Biography, the only rational plan,
as matters stood, was to take what he himself had seen
fit to impart on the subject ; and by proper commentary
and adaptation, above all, by a suitable version, and not
perversion of what was to be translated, enable an
Englishman to read it with the eye of a German." Cor-
respondence between Goethe and Carlyle, p. 170.

154

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Luther ; — which I have refused. If I write
Luther, it must be more than a Biographic
chronicle or less. Shall we go to Weimar
then in winter, and prepare all the documents
for that end? — Manos a la obra\ — Take
the task which is nearest thee !

Francis Jeffrey the other week offered me
a hundred a year; 1 having learned that this
sum met my yearly wants : he did it neatly
enough, and I had no doubt of his sincerity.
What a state of society is this; in which a
man would rather be shot thro' the heart,
twenty-times, than do both himself and his
neighbour a real ease / How separate Pride
from the natural necessary feeling of Self?
It is ill to do ; yet may be done.

On the whole, I have been somewhat in

1 In his Reminiscences, ii, 254, Carlyle, writing thirty-
six years later, says : ' ' Jeffrey about this time gener-
ously offered to confer on me an annuity of ^"ioo ; —
which annual sum, had it fallen on me from the clouds,
would have been of very high convenience at that time,
but which I could not, for a moment, have dreamt of
accepting as gift or subventionary help from any fellow
mortal." He goes on to set forth his motives for refusing
the offer in a passage of acute analysis of his own and
Jeffrey's feelings in the matter, in which he perhaps
hardly does justice to the simplicity of Jeffrey's kind in-
tention. The whole transaction was creditable to both.
It reminds one of the Wedgwoods' annuity to Coleridge.
The contrast between Coleridge and Carlyle in their re-
spective dealing with a similar matter is striking.

155

NOTE BOOK OF

the wrong about ' independence ' ; man is not
independent of his brother. Twenty men
united in love can accomplish much that to
two thousand isolated men were impossible.
Know this ; and know also that thou hast a
power of thy own, and standest with a Heaven
above even thee. — And so, im TenfeVs Namen,
get to thy work then ! —

Quid mortui viventium legitis epitaphia ? 1

/-Hart-man v. Kirch-

I berg's Epitaph on

Hutteni opera I. 234 J himself: he was

Abbot of Fulda
V about 1500.

8 th June. Am about beginning the Second
Volume of that Germ. Lit. Hist. :
dreadfully lazy to start. I know and feel
that it will be a trivial insignificant Book, do
what I can : yet the writing of it sickens me
and inflames my nerves, as if it were a Poem /
Were I done with this, I will endeavour to
compile no more.

30 th June. On the 22 nd of June 1830, my

Sister Margaret died at Dumfries,

whither she had been removed exactly a week

before for medical help. It was on a Tuesday

night, about 20 minutes past ten. Alick and

l •« Why do ye dead read the epitaphs of the living? "

156

THOMAS CARLYLE.

I were roused by express about midnight,
and we arrived there about four. That sol-
stice night with its singing birds and sad
thoughts I shall never forget. She was in-
terred next Saturday at Ecclefechan. I reck-
oned her the best of all my sisters, — in some
respects the best woman I had ever seen.
Fain would I have saved her, but it was not
to be. —

" Whom bring ye us to the still dwelling?"
" Tis a tired playmate whom we bring you:
let her rest in your still dwelling, till the songs
of her heavenly sisters awaken her." 1

spirit

Thy quiet goodness, [heart so] pure & brave

now with tears

[With tears] what boots it [here] to tell ?

Peace [Rest]

The path to [God] is thro' the grave;

take our long

Thou loved one, for a while, farewell ! 2

And so this morning (Wednesday), let me

1 These words are from Wilhelm Meister's Appren-
ticeship, Book viii. ch. 8. [What a tragedy was this to
us; how vivid still in all its details to me! (1866.)], is
written on the margin of the Note-book. In his Reminis-
cences, ii. 193-195, Carlyle gives a touching account of his
sister's illness and death. It shows the depth and per-
manence of his affection. It should be read in connec-
tion with a letter to his brother John, of June 29, 1830 —
a most affecting contemporary narrative. Life, ii. 109.

2 The bracketed words of this stanza are erased in
the manuscript.

157

NOTE BOOK OF

betake myself again, with what energy I can,
to the commencement of my task. Work is
for the living, Rest is for the dead.

Is not the Christian Religion, is not every
truly vital interest of mankind (?) a thing
that grotvs ? Like some Nile ' whose springs
are indeed hidden, but whose full flood bring-
ing gladness and fertility from its mysterious
mountains is seen and welcomed by all.'
(from myself!) —

Received • about four weeks ago a strange
letter from some Saint- Simoniens at Paris,
grounded on my little Signs of the Times. 1
These people have strange notions, not with-
out a large spicing of truth, and are them-
selves among the Signs. I shall feel curious
to know what becomes of them. La classe
la plus pauvre is evidently in the way of rising
from its present deepest abasement : in time,
it is likely, the world will be better divided,
and he that has the toil of ploughing will
have the first cut at the reaping. — I answered
these St. Ss. and partly expect to hear from
them again. 2

l Published a few months before in the Edinburgh
Review. The thought contained in the preceding para-
graph is treated at large in it.

2" I forget whether I mentioned last week," writes
Carlyle to his mother, "that we had a parcel from Goethe,
with pictures of his House, etc. ; and a still stranger
parcel from Paris addressed to the Author of the Signs

I 5 8

THOMAS CARLYLE.

A man with ^200,000 a year eats the
whole fruit of 6,666 men's labour thro' a year ;
for you can get a stout spademan to work
and maintain himself for that sum of ^30.
Thus we have private individuals whose wages
are equal to the wages of 7 or 8 thousand
other individuals : what do those highly bene-
ficed individuals do to society for their wages ?

of the Times. The people there seem to think me a very
promising man, and that some good will come of me.
Thus a prophet is not without honor save in his own
country. Poor prophet! However, in my present soli-
tude, I am very glad of these small encouragements."
Letters, i. 226. In a letter of the 31 August, 1830, to
Goethe, Carlyle tells of the letter and books sent to
him by La Sociiti Saint Simonienne and adds : " If you
have chanced to notice that Saint Simonian affair,
which long turned on Political Economy, and but lately
became Artistic and Religious, I should like much to
hear your thoughts on it." Correspondence of Goethe and
Carlyle, p. 215. In his reply on the 17th October, Goethe
merely says: "Von der Socie'te' St. Simonienne bitte
Sich fern zu halten." " From the St. Simonian Society
pray hold yourself aloof." Id. p. 226.. Writing again
to Goethe, on the 22d June, 1831, Carlyle tells of another
gift of documents from the Saint-Simonians, and says :
"They seem to me to be earnest, zealous and nowise
ignorant men, but wandering in strange paths. I should
say they have discovered and laid to heart this momen-
tous and now almost forgotten truth, Man is still Man,
and are already beginning to make false applications of
it. I have every disposition to follow your advice, and
stand apart from them ; looking on their Society and its
progress nevertheless as a true and remarkable Sign of
the Times." Id. p. 258. In Sartor Resartus, Book iii.
ch. xii, Carlyle repeats his opinion of the Saint Simo-
nians in almost the same words as those he had used
concerning them to Goethe.

159

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Kill Partridges! Can this last ? No, by the
soul that is in man, it cannot and will not
and shall not ! —

Our Political Economists should collect
statistical facts / such as, What is the lowest
sum a man can live on in various countrie's ;
what is the highest he gets to live on ; How
many people work with their hands, How
many with their heads, How many not at all;

— and innumerable such. What all want to
know is the condition of our fellow men, and
strange to say, it is the thing least of all un-
derstood, or to be understood as matters go.

— The present ' Science ' of Political Econo-
my requires far less intellect than successful
Bellows-mending; and perhaps does less
good, if we deduct all the evil it brings us.
1 Tho' young it already carries marks of de-
crepitude ' : a speedy and soft death to it !

You see two men fronting each other ; one
sits dressed in red cloth, the other stands
dressed in threadbare blue ; the first says to
the other: Be hanged and anatomised! —
and it is forthwith put in execution, and the
matter rests not till Number Two is a skele-
ton ! Whence comes it ? These men have

1 Readers of Sartor Resartus will recall that one of the
particulars in the famous epitaph of Count Zahdarm is :
Dum sub Luna agebat, quinquies mille Perdrices plumbo
confecit.

160

THOMAS CARLYLE.

no physical hold of each other, they are not in
contact ; each of the Bailiffs &c. is included
within his own skin, and not hooked to any
other. The Reason is: Man is a spirit ; in-
visible influences run thro' Society, and make
it a mysterious whole, full of Life and inscrut-
able activities and capabilities. Our individ-
ual existence is mystery; our social still

more.-

Nothing can act but where it is ? True,
if you will; only where is it? Is not the
Distant, the Dead, whom I love and sorrow
for, Here, in the genuine spiritual sense, as
really as the Table I now write on ? Space
is a mode of our Sense ; so is Time (this I
only half understand) : we are — we know
not what ; light-sparkles floating in the Aether
of the Divinity ! — So that this solid world,
after all, is but an air-image ; our Me is the
only reality, ' and all is Godlike or God.' — 2

Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism ;
wilt live in the daylight (rushlight ?) of Truth,
and see thy world and understand it ? Nay
thou wilt laugh at all that believe in a Mys-
tery ; to whom the Universe is an Oracle and
Temple as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall ?
Armer Teufel 7 Doth not thy Cow calve, doth
not thy Bull gender? Nay (peradventure)

IThis paragraph, in fuller development, is embodied
in Sartor Res artus, Book i. ch. ix.
2 Cf. Sartor Resartus, Book i. ch. vii.

ii 161

NOTE BOOK OF

dost not thou thyself gender ? Explain me
that ; or do one of two things : Retire into
private places with thy foolish cackle; or,
what were better, give it up, and weep, not
that the world is mean and disenchanted and
prosaic, but that thou art vain and blind. — 1

Is anything more wonderful than another,
if you consider it maturely ? / have seen no
men rise from the Dead; I have seen some
thousands rise from Nothing: I have not
force to fly into the Sun, but I have force to
lift my hand ; which is equally strange. 2

Wonder is the basis of worship : the reign
of Wonder is perennial, indestructible ; only
at certain stages (as the present) it is (for
some short season) in partibus infidelium?

What is a man if you look at him with the

1 Cf. Sartor Resartus, Book i. ch. x, where this para-
graph appears with some enlargement.

2 " Thus were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth
my hand and clutch the Sun ? Yet thou seest me daily
stretch forth my hand and therewith clutch many a thing,
and swing it hither and thither. Art thou a grown baby,
then, to fancy that the Miracle lies in miles of distance,
or in pounds avoirdupois of weight ; and not to see that
the true inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this,
that I stretch forth my hand at all ; that I have free force
to clutch aught therewith ? "

Sartor Resartus ; Book iii. ch. viii.

3 This sentence appears in Sartor Resartus, Book i.
ch. x.

162

THOMAS CARLYLE.

mere Logical sense, with the Understanding ?
A pitiful hungry biped that wears breeches.
Often when I read of pompous ceremonials,
drawing-room levees and coronations, on a
sudden the clothes fly off the whole party in
my fancy, and they stand there straddling,
in a half-ludicrous, half-horrid condition! —
August 1830. 1

September 7^ Yesterday I received tid-
ings that my project of
cutting up that thrice-wretched Hist. G.
Literature into Review Articles, and so
realizing something for my Year's work,
will not take effect. The ' Course of Provi-
dence ' (nay sometimes I almost feel that
there is such a thing even for me) seems
guiding my steps into new regions ; the ques-
tion is coming more and more towards a
decision : Canst thou, there as thou art, ac-
complish aught good and true, or art thou to
die miserably as a vain Pretender ? It is
above a year since I wrote one sentence that
came from the right place ; since I did one
action that seemed to be really worthy. The
want of money is a comparatively insignifi-
cant affair : 2 were I doing well otherwise, I

1 Here is the first formal expression of the thought
that grew into Sartor Resartus. Cf. Book i. chs. ix, x,
in which the special fancies of this paragraph have their
full play.

2 "We are very poor at present; but that is all, and

163

NOTE BOOK OF

could most readily consent to go destitute
and suffer all sorts of things. On the whole
I am a — But tush! —

The Moral Nature of a man is not a com-
posite factitious concern, but lies in the very
heart of his being, as his very Self of Selves.
The first alleviation to irremediable Pain is
some conviction that it has been merited;
that it comes from the All-just, from God. —

What am I but a sort of Ghost? Men
rise as Apparitions from the bosom of Night,
and after grinning, squeaking, gibbering some
space, return thither. The earth they stand
on is Bottomless; the vault of their sky is
Infinitude; the Life- Time is encompassed
with Eternity. O wonder! And they buy
cattle or seats in Parliament, and drink
coarser or finer fermented liquours, as if all
this were a City that had foundations. 1

I have strange glimpses of the power of
spiritual Union, of Association among men
of like object. Therein lies the true Element
of Religion : it is a truly supernatural cli-
mate. All wondrous things, from a Pennen-
den Heath, or Penny-a-week Purgatory So-

we will get over that. Fear nothing: we mean nothing
but honest things, and must and will prosper in them,
seeing the very effort is success." Carlyle to his brother
John, Aug. 6, 1830. Letters, i. 230.
l Cf. Sartor Resartus, Book i. ch. iii.

164

THOMAS CARLYLE.

ciety, to the foundation of a Christianity, or
the (now obsolete) exercise of magic, take
their rise here. Men work godlike miracles
thereby, and the horridest abominations.
Society is a wonder of wonders ; x and Politics
(in the right sense, far, very far from the
common one) is the noblest Science.

Cor ne edito ! 2 Up and be doing ! Hast thou
not the strangest grandest of all talents com-
mitted to thee; namely Life itself? O
Heaven ! And it is momently rusting and
wasting, if thou use it not. Up and be do-
ing; and pray (if thou but can) to the Un-
seen Author of all thy Strength to guide thee

1 Cf. Sartor Resartus, Book iii. ch. ii.

2 See ante, p. 131. This injunction is among the say-
ings ascribed to Pythagoras by Diogenes Laertius in his
Life of the philosopher, § 18. Plutarch cites it in his
essay 'Of the Training of Children.' "Eat not thy
heart ; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them
with vexatious cares." But, as was long since pointed out,
the conception of eating one's own heart is to be found
in Homer, in the pathetic verses describing Bellerophon :

— olog dXutOf
Ov &Vfiov xatidoiv, ndtov dv&QOJrttav aXsshcov.
" He wandered solitary, eating his own heart, avoiding
the path of men." Iliad, vi. 201-2; and again in the
ninth book of the Odyssey, vv. 74, 75, "There," says
Ulysses, "for two nights and days we lay, eating our
hearts because of toil and trouble." Carlyle had expe-
rienced the bitterness of this diet. "It was my own
heart . . . that I kept devouring," says Teufelsdrockh,
Sartor Resartus , Book ii. ch. viii. And in Wotton Rein/red,
Carlyle wrote, "He hurried into the country, not to
possess his soul in peace as he had hoped, but, in truth,
like Homer's Bellerophon, to eat his own heart." P. 43.

165

NOTE / BOOK OF

and aid thee; to give thee if not Victory
and Possession, unwearied Activity and
Entsagen. —

Is not every Thought properly an Inspira-
tion ? Or how is one thing more inspired
than another ? Much is in this. —

Why should Politeness be the peculiar
characteristic of the Rich and Well-born ?
Is not every man alive ; is not every man
infinitely venerable to every other ? ' There
is but one Temple in the Universe ' says No-
valis, ' and that is the body of man.' 1 —

Franz von Sickingen was one of the no-
blest men of the Reformation Period. He
defended Ulrich von Hutten j warred against
perfidious Wiirtemberg; was the terror of
evil doers the praise of whoso did well.
Hutten and he read Luther together : Light
rising in Darkness! He also stood by
Gotz von Berlichingen, and now walks in
Poetry. But why I mention him here is his
transcendent good-breeding. He was at
feud with his superior the Bishop of Triers,
and besieged by him, and valiantly defend-
ing himself against injustice, at the moment
when he received his death-wound. His
Castle was surrendered; Triers and others

1 Novalis Schriften, ii. 126. Berlin, 1826. The pre-
ceding entry is developed in Sartor Resartus, Book iii.
ch. iv.

166

THOMAS CARLYLE.

approached the brave man over whose coun-
tenance the last paleness was already spread-
ing. He took off his cap to Triers, there as
he lay in that stern agony. What a picture !
— "He had feud with the Archbishop of
Trier, whom the Elector Palatine, the Land-
graf of Hessen, and a large portion of the
German Nobles were assisting. His castle
Landstein was besieged by these Allies in
1523; the hero defended it night and day
with unflinching steadfastness and valour.
At last he was struck on the roof [Dach-
mauer) by a musket ball, and fell. He lived
four and twenty hours; spoke kindly with
the Princes who had conquered him; and
tho' already todtschwach 1 took off his cap
(Muzze) to the Archbishop whose vassal he
was. Even his Enemies wept at the lordly
obsequies that in the Church at Landstein
were rendered him." Ulrich von Hutien by
Wagenseil (page already lost in turning to
the Title!) — Lands tuhl the Conv. Lexicon
calls the Castle. Munch, F. von Sickingen's
Plane, Thaten, Freunde und Ausgang is in two
volumes. Should like to see it. —

Nulla dies sine lineal — Eheu! Eheu !
Yesterday (Monday) accordingly I wrote a
thing in dactyls, entitled the Wandering
Spirits, which now fills and then filled me

1 " Faint with death."
167

NOTE BOOK OF

' with detestation and abhorrence.' No mat-
ter: to day I must do the like. Nulla dies
sine lineal To the persevering, they say,
all things are possible. Possible or impossi-
ble, I have no other implement for trying.

Last night I sat up very late reading
Scott's History of Scotland. An amusing
Narrative, clear, precise and I suppose accu-
rate j but no more a History of Scotland than
I am Pope of Rome. A series of Palace
intrigues, and butcheries and battles little
more important than those of Donnybrook
Fair; all the while that Scotland, quite un-
noticed, is holding on her course in Industry,
in Arts, in Culture, as if Langside and
Clean-the- Causeway had remained unfought.
Strange that a man should think he was
writing the History of a Nation, while he is
chronicling the amours of a wanton young
woman called Queen, and a sulky booby
recommended to Kingship for his fine limbs,
and then blown up with gunpowder for ill-
behaviour. Good Heaven ! let them fondle
and pout and bicker ad libitum : what has
God's fair Creation, and man's immortal Des-
tiny to do with them and their trade ?—

One inference I have drawn from Scott:
that the people in those old days had a singu-
lar talent for nicknames : King Toom-Tabard,
Bell the Cat (less meritorious), the Foul Raid,
the Roundabout 'Raid, Clean-the- Causeway , the
1 68

THOMAS CARLYLE.

lulchan Prelates, 1 &c. &c. Apparently there
was more Humour in the national mind then
than now.

For the rest, the Scottish History looks like
that of a Gypsey encampment : industry of
the rudest, largely broken by sheer indolence ;
smoke, sluttishness, hunger, scab and — blood.
Happily, as hinted, Scotland herself was not
there.

Lastly it is noteworthy that the Nobles of
the country have maintained a quite despi-
cable behaviour, from the times of Wallace
downwards. A selfish, ferocious, famishing,
unprincipled set of hyaenas, from whom at
no time and in no way has the country de-
rived any benefit. The day is coming when
these our modern hyaenas (tho' toothless, still
mischievous, and greedy beyond limit) will
(quickly I hope) be paid off. " Canaille fain-
e'ante, que faites-vous la ? Down with your
double-barrels ; take spades, if ye can do no
better, and work or die ! "

The quantity of Pain thou feelest is indica-
tion of the quantity of Life, of Talen t, thou hast :
a stone feels no Pain. — (' Is that a fact ? ')

1 A tulchane is, according to Jaraieson, Dictionary of the
Scottish Language, " a calf's skin stuffed with straw, and
set beside a cow, to make her give milk;" and a Tul-
chane Bishop, "one who received the episcopate on
condition of assigning the temporalities to a secular
person."

169

NOTE BOOK OF

Thursday, Wrote a fractionlet of verse
9 th September entitled The Beetle 1 (a real
incident on Glaisters Moor),
which alas ! must stand for the Linea both
of Tuesday and Wednesday. To day I am
to try I know not what. Greater clearness
will arrive ; I make far most progress when
I walk, on solitary roads — of which there
are enough here.

Last night came a whole Bundle of Fraser
Magazines &c. : two little Papers by my
Brother in them; some (small-beer) Fables
by me ; and on the whole such a hurlyburly
of rhodomontade, punch, loyalty, and Saturna-
lian Toryism as eye hath not seen. This out-
Blackwoods Blackwood. Nevertheless the
thing has its meaning : a kind of wild popu-
lar Lower-Comedy; of which John Wilson is
the Inventor: it may perhaps, for it seems
well adapted to the age, carry down his name
to other times, as his most remarkable achieve-
ment. All the Magazines (except the New
Monthly) seem to aim at it : a certain quick-
ness, fluency of banter, not excluding sharp
insight, and Merry- Andrew Drollery, and
even Humour, are available here ; however,
the grand requisite seems to be Impudence,
and a fearless committing of yourself to talk
in your Drink. — Literature has nothing to do
with this, but Printing has; and Printing is
l See Essays, i., Appendix, for these verses.
170

THOMAS CARLYLE.

now no more the peculiar symbol and livery
of Literature than writing was in Gutenberg's
day. —

Great actions are sometimes historically
barren; smallest actions have taken root (in
the moral soil) and grown like banana-forests
to cover whole quarters of the world. Aris-
totle's Philosophy and the Sermon on the
Mount (and both too had fair trial) ; the
Mecanique Celeste and the Sorrows of Wer-
ter ; Alexander's Expedition, and that of
Paul an Apostle of the Gentiles ! Of these,
however, Werter is half a gourd, and only by
its huge decidua (to be used as manure) will
fertilize the Future. So too with the rest ; all
are deciduous, and must at last make manure ;
only at longer dates. Yet of some the root
also (?) seems to be undying.

What are Schiller and Goethe, if you try
them in that way ? As yet it is too soon to
try them. No true effort can be lost.

One thing we see: the moral nature of
man is deeper than his intellectual ; things
planted down into the former may grow as
if forever ; the latter as a kind of drift mould
produces only annuals. What is J esus Christ's
significance ? Altogether moral.

What is Jeremy Bentham's significance ?
Altogether intellectual, logical. I name him
as the representative of a class, important
only for their numbers; intrinsically weari-

171

NOTE BOOK OF

some, almost pitiable and pitiful. Logic is
their sole foundation, no other even recog-
nized as possible : wherefore their system is
a Machine, and cannot grow or endure ; but
after thrashing for a little (and doing good
service that way) must thrash itself to pieces,
and be made fuel. — Alas poor England,
stupid, purblind, pudding-eating England !
Bentham with his Mills grinding thee out
Morality; and some Macaulay, also be-
aproned and a grinder, testing it and decry-
ing it, because it is not his own Whig-estab-
lished Quern-morality ! I mean that the
Utilitarians have Logical Machinery, and do
grind fiercely and potently, on their own
foundation; whereas the Whigs have no
foundation but must stick up their handmills,
or even pepper-mills, on what fixture they can
come at, and there grind as it pleases Heaven.
The Whigs are Amateurs, the Radicals are
Guild-brethren.

The Sin of this age is Dilettantism; the
Whigs, and all 'moderate Tories,' are the
grand Dilettanti : I begin to feel less and less
patience for them. This is no world where
a man should stand trimming his whiskers,
looking on at work, or touching it with the
point of a gloved finger. Man sollte greifen
zu ! 1 There is more hope of an Atheist Utilita-
rian, of a Superstitious Ultra, than of such a

1 " One must grip hold."
172

THOMAS CARLYLE.

lukewarm, withered mongrel. He would not
believe tho' one rose from the dead. He is
wedded to his idols, let him alone.

September Rain! Rain! Rain! The

(about the 28th). crops all lying tattered,

scattered and unripe j the

winter's bread still under the soaking clouds !

God pity the poor !

The Jeffreys were here for about a week. 1
Very good and interesting beyond wont was
our worthy Dean. He is growing old, and
seems dispirited and partly unhappy. — The
fairest cloak has its wrong side, where the
seams and straggling stitches afflict the eye !
Envy no man ; nescis quo urit, thou knowest
not where the shoe pinches.

Jeffrey's essential talent sometimes seems
to me to have been that of a Goldoni ; some
comic Dramatist not without a touch of true
lyrical pathos. He is the best mimic (in the
lowest and highest senses) I ever saw. All
matters that have come before him he has
taken up in little dainty comprehensible forms ;
chiefly logical (for he is a Scotchman and
Lawyer) and encircled with sparkles of con-
versational wit ox persiflage ; yet with deeper

ISee Reminiscences, "Lord Jeffrey," ii. 245, sqq. for
Carlyle's recollections of this visit, and his final estimate
of his friend.

173

NOTE BOOK OF

study he would have found poetical forms for
them, and his persiflage might have incor-
porated itself gracefully with the Love and
pure humane feeling that dwells deeply in
him. This last is his highest strength, tho'
he himself hardly knows the significance of
it : he is one of the most loving men alive ;
has a true kindness, not of blood and habit
only, but of soul and spirit. He cannot do
without being loved. He is in the highest
degree social ; and in defect of this, gregar-
ious ; which last condition he (in these bad
times) has for most part had to content him-
self withal. Every way indeed he has fallen
on evil days : the prose spirit of the world (to
which world his kindliness draws him so
strongly and closely) has choked up and all
but withered the better poetic spirit he de-
rived from nature. Whatever is highest, he
entertains (like other Whigs) only as an orna-
ment, as an appendage. The great business
of Man he (intellectually) considers as a
worldling does : To be happy. I have heard
him say : ? If Folly were the happiest, I would
be a fool.' Yet his daily Life belies this
doctrine, and says : \ Tho' Goodness were the
most wretched I would be Good.'

In conversation he is brilliant (or rather
sparkling), lively, kind, willing either to speak
or listen, and above all men I have ever seen,
ready and copious. On the whole exceed-

i74

THOMAS CARLYLE.

ingly pleasant in light talk. Yet alas light,
light, too light! He will talk of nothing
earnestly, tho' his look sometimes betrays an
earnest feeling. He starts contradiction in
such cases, and argues, argues. Neither is
his arguing like that of a Thinker, but of an
Advocate ; Victory not Truth. A right Terrae
Filius would feel irresistibly disposed to
' wash him away.' He is not a strong man
in any shape ; but nimble and tough.

He stands midway between God and
Mammon ; and his preaching thro' Life has
been an attempt to reconcile these. Hence
his popularity; a thing easily accountable when
one looks at the world and at him ; but little
honourable to either. Literature ! Poetry !
Except by a dim indestructible Instinct,
which he has never dared to avow, yet being
a true Poet (in his way) could never eradicate
— he knows not what they mean. A true
Newspaper Critic, on the great scale; no
Priest, but a Concionator !

Yet on the whole, he is about the best man
I ever saw. Sometimes I think he will ab-
jure the Devil (if he live), and become a pure
Light. Already he is a most tricksy dainty
beautiful little Spirit : I have seen gleams on
the face and eyes of the man that let you
look into a higher country. God bless him !
And I will blab no more. These jottings are
as sincere as I could write them, yet too dim

i75

NOTE BOOK OF

and inaccurately compacted. I see the nail,
but have not here hit it on the head. Basta /

I am going to write — Nonsense. It is
on " Clothes." * Heaven be my comforter ! —

It was a wise regulation, which ordained
that certain days and times should be set
apart for Seclusion and Meditation; whether
as Fasts or not may reasonably admit of
doubt, the business being * to get out of the
Body to philosophize.' But, on the whole,
there is a deep significance in Silence.
Were a man forced for a length of time but
to hold his peace, it were in most cases an in-
calculable benefit to his insight. Thought
works in Silence ; so does Virtue. One might
erect statues to Silence. I sometimes think
it were good for me, who after all cannot err
much in loquacity here, did I impose on my-
self at set times, the duty — of not speaking
for a day. What folly would one avoid, did
the tongue lie quiet till the mind had fin-
ished, and were calling for utterance. Not
only our good Thoughts but our good Pur-
poses also are frittered asunder and dissipated
by unseasonable speaking of them. Words,
the strangest product of our nature, are also
the most potent. Beware of speaking. Speech

1 Sartor Resartus ; begun at this time, the book was
completed in July, 1831. See Letters, i. 235, 300.

176

THOMAS CARLYLE.

is human, Silence is divine : yet also brutish
and dead ; therefore we must learn both arts,
they are both difficult. Flower-roots hidden
under soil; Bees working in Darkness, &c.
The soul too in Silence. — Let not thy left
hand know what thy right hand doeth. In-
deed, Secrecy is the element of all Goodness j
every Virtue, every Beauty is mysterious. I
hardly understand even the surface of this. — *

Written a strange piece " On clothes " :
know not what will come of it. October 28^

1830-

See in Goethe's Werke B[and] 31, about
page 220, for the possible material of an
Article.

Our loveliest dear doth sit down stairs
Seek well and the gay sweetheart you'll find
A timber gown is the suit she wears,
And her name is the Muscadine. 2

Seb. Brandt.

Gutes Pferd

Ist's Hafers werth. 3

(Myself! November 24th)

Received the ■ ornamented Schiller ' from

1 Cf. Sartor Resartus, Book iii. ch. iii, where the sub-
stance of this entry is reworked.

2 See ante (page 118).

3 "A good horse is worth his oats."

12 177

NOTE BOOK OF

Goethe, and wondered not a little to see poor
old Craigenputtock engraved at Frankfort on
the Meyn. If I become anything it will look
well; if I become nothing, a piece of kind
dotage (on his part). 1 — Sent away the Clothes ;^
of which I could make a kind of Book ; but
cannot afford it. Have still the Book in
petto (?) but in the most chaotic shape.

The Whigs in office, and Baron Brougham
Lord Chancellor ! Hay-stacks and corn-
stacks burning over all the South and
Middle of England ! Where will it end ?
Revolution on the back of Revolution for a

1 On the sixth of June, 1830, Goethe wrote to Carlyle :
" Further you will find in the little box the last sheets of
the translation of your Life of Schiller. The publication
has been delayed, and I wished to make the little work
especially pretty, for the sake of the publisher, as well as
for its own. I have certainly pleased the public, so may
you excuse it. The frontispiece represents your house
from a near point of view, the vignette on the title-page,
the same from a distance. . . . Outside, on the front
cover is a view of Schiller's house in Weimar ; and on
the cover at the back, a little garden-house [at Jena]
which he himself built in order that he might withdraw
from his family and all the world." , Correspondence be-
tween Goethe and Carlyle, p. 203. To this volume, which
has now become scarce, Goethe prefixed a long preface
of much interest, a translation of which forms the first
appendix to the above-cited Correspondence, occupying
pp. 299-323.

2 It was Carlyle's first intention to make two magazine
articles of what became the book Sartor. This paper
which he sent to Fraser's Magazine was entitled
" Thoughts on Clothes." See Letters, i. 238, 249.

178

THOMAS CARLYLE.

century yet ? Religion, the cement of Society ■,
is not here: we can have no permanent
beneficent arrangement of affairs.

Not that we want no Aristocracy, but that
we want a true one. While the many work
with their hands, let the few work with their
heads and hearts, honestly, and not with a
shameless villainy only pretend to work, or
even openly steal — Were the Landlords all
hanged, and their estates given to the poor,
we should be (economically) much happier
perhaps for the space of thirty years j but the
Population would be doubled then, and again
the Hunger of the unthrifty would burn the
granary of the industrious. Alas! that there
is no Church ; and as yet no apparent possi-
bility of one !

The divine right of Squires is equal to the
right divine of Kings, and not superior ? A
word has made them, and a word can un-
make.

I have no Property in anything whatsoever ;
except perhaps (if I am a virtuous man) in
my own Free-will : of my Body I have only
a life-rent; of all that is without my Skin
only an accidental Possession — so long as I
can keep it. Vain man ! are the stars thine
because thou lookest on them ; is that piece
of Earth thine because thou hast eaten of its

179

NOTE BOOK OF

fruits ? Thy proudest Palace, what is it but a
Tent; pitched not indeed for days, yet for
years ? The earth is the Lord's. Remember
this, and seek other Duties than game-pre-
serving, wouldest thou not be an interloper,
sturdy beggar, and even thief : —

Faules Pferd

Keins Hafers werth.i

The Labourer is worthy of his Hire; and the
Idler of his also, — namely of Starvation.

What is Art and Poetry ? Is the Beautiful
really higher than the Good ? A higher form
thereof ? Thus were a Poet not only a Priest
but a High- Priest.

Examine by Logic the import of thy Life,
and of all lives : What is it ? A making of
Meal into Manure; and of Manure into
Meal. 2 To the Cui-bono there is no answer
from Logic.

Clara gives a kiss, is it much for her to do ?
When she gives one don't she take one too ?

Canst keep thy own secret
No other will break it.

1 " The idle horse not worth his oats."

2 Compare the humorous development of this thought
in the epitaph on Count Zahdarm, Sartor Resartus \ Book
ii. ch. iv.

180

THOMAS CARLYLE.

These two from Logaiu A Latin transla-
tion of Mai in Jordens B[and] 6.

(Written here to get rid of a rag of Paper
— it is a sorting day — Ach !)

29th December The old year just expiring ;
1 830. one of the most worthless

years I have spent for a
long time. Durch eignes und andrer Schuld! *
But words are worse than nothing. To thy
Review' 1 (Taylor's Hist. Survey.) Is it the
most despicable of work ? Yet is it not too
good for thee ? O, I care not for Poverty, lit-
tle even for Disgrace, nothing at all for want
of Renown : but the horrible feeling is when
I cease my own struggle, lose the conscious-
ness of my own strength, and become posi-
tively quite worldly and wicked. —

In the paths of Fortune (Fortune ! ) I have
made no advancement, since last year; but
on the contrary (owing chiefly to that German
Literary History, one way and another) con-
siderably retrograded. No matter; had I
but progressed in the other better path ! But
alas ! alas ! — Howsoever, pocas palabras I I
am still here.

Bist Du glucklich, Du Gute, dass Du unter
die Erde bist ? — Wo stehst Du ? Liebst Du

1 " Through my own and others' fault."

2 Historic Survey of German Poetry. By W. Taylor of
Norwich, 3 vols., 8vo. London, 1830.

181

NOTE BOOK OF

mich noch ? I — God is the God of the Dead
as well as of the living: the Dead, as the
Living, are where — He wills.

Kehret ins Leben zuruck t ■• — Jack 3 writes
miserably hurried letters : I fear he is un-
happy j there is no doubt he is a little unwise ;
yet I think him gathering wisdom.

This Taylor is a wretched Atheist and
Philistine : it is my duty (perhaps) to put the
flock, whom he professes to lead, on their
guard. Let me do it well I

In a purse from my wife, yesterday (De-
cember 30th 1830); written with pencil on a
slip of paper, which I now burn :

Fortunatus' Purse was a mighty fine thing,
Yet a pest, nothing else, to its owner ;
For me, neither guineas nor troubles I bring,
My whole worth is the Love of my donor.

Feby7*M831. Finished the Review of
Taylor some three weeks
ago, and sent it off: no tidings about it yet.
It is worth little, and only partially in a right
spirit. —

l " Art thou fortunate, thou Good One, in being under
the earth ? Where art thou ? Still lovest thou me?"

2 " Let us come back to life."

3 Dr. John Carlyle, then in London.

182

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Sent to Jack to liberate my Teufelsdreck 1
from Editorial durance in London, and am seri-
ously thinking to make a Book of it. 2 The
thing is not right, not Art j yet perhaps a
nearer approach to Art than I have yet made.
We ought to try. I want to get it done ; and
then translate Faust, as I have partially prom-
ised to Goethe. Thro' Teufelsdreck I am yet
far from seeing my way ; nevertheless mate-
rials are partly forthcoming. —

Goethe has lost his son, and been on the
point of death himself. Venerable old man !
Shall I never see thee with these eyes ? — A
letter of mine will be about this time in his
hands.

No sense from the Foreign Quarterly Re-
view ; have nearly determined on opening a
correspondence on the matter of that ' ever-
lasting MS ' with Bowring of the Westminster.
Could write also a Paper on the Saint-Simo-
nians. One too on Dr. Johnson — for Napier.
Such are the financial aspects. N. B. I have
some ^5 to front the world with; and ex-
pect no more for months. Jack too is in
the neap tide. — Hand to the oar ! —

All Europe is in a state of disturbance, of

1 See Letters, i. 249. " Teufelsdreck, that is the title of
my present Schrift." Id. 237.

2 Had gone to Fraset first, then ? [T. C. 1866.]

183

NOTE BOOK OF

Revolution. About this very time they may
be debating the question of British 'Reform,'
in London : the Parliament opened last week,
our news of it expected on Wednesday. The
times are big with change. Will one century
of constant fluctuation serve us, or shall we
need two ? Their Pari. Reforms, and all that,
are of small moment ; a beginning (of good
& evil) nothing more. The whole frame of
Society is rotten and must go for fuel-wood,
and where is the new frame to come from ?
I know not, and no man knows.

The only Sovereigns of the world in these
days are the Literary men (were there any
such in Britain), the Prophets. It is always
a Theocracy; the King has to be anointed
by the Priest, and now the Priest (the Goethe
for example) will not cannot consecrate the
existing King, who therefore is a usurper, and
reigns only by sufferance. What were the
bet that King William were the last of that
Profession in Britain, and Queen Victoria
never troubled with the sceptre at all ? Mighty
odds ; yet nevertheless not infinite ; for what
thing is certain now ? No mortal cares two-
pence for any King, or obeys any King ex-
cept thro' compulsion: and Society is not a
Ship of war, its Government cannot always be
a Pressgang.

What are the Episcopal Dignitaries saying
184

THOMAS CARLYLE.

to it ? Who knows but Edward Irving may
yet be a Bishop! They will clutch round
them for help, and unmuzzle all manner of
Bulldogs when the thief is at the gate : Bull-
dogs with teeth ; the generality have no teeth
in that Kennel.

Kings do reign by divine right, or not at
all. The King that were God-appointed,
would be an emblem of God, and could de-
mand all obedience from us. But where is
that King ? The Best Man, could we find
him, were he. Tell us, tell us, O ye Codifiers
and Statists and Economists, how we shall
find him and raise him to the throne : — or
else admit that the science of Polity is worse
than unknown to you.

Earl {Jarl, Yirl), Count, Duke, Knight, &c.
&c. are all titles derived ixom. fighling : the
honour-titles, in a future time, will derive
themselves from knowing and well-doing.
They will also be conferred with more deli-
beration, and by better judges. This is a
prophecy of mine. 1

God is above us ! Else the figure of the
world were well nigh desperate. ' Go where
we may the deep Heaven will be round us.'

Jeffrey is Lord Advocate and M. P. Sobbed
and shrieked at taking office, like a bride going
l Cf. Sartor Resartus, Book iii. ch. vii.
I8 5

NOTE BOOK OF

to be married. I wish him altogether well j
but reckon that he is on the wrong course :
Whiggism, I believe, is all but forever dofie.
Away with Dilettantism and Machiavelism,
tho' we should get Atheism and Sanscullotism
in their room ! The latter are at least sub-
stantial things, and do not build on a con-
tinued wilful falsehood. —

But oh ! But oh ! Where is Teufelsdreck
all this while ? — The Southwest is busy thaw-
ing off that horrible snow-storm ; Time rests
not : thou only art idle. To pen ! to pen !
(I shall have Benvenuto Cellini at night.) —

Feb? 14*!? Ay de mil Another week
gone, painfully and lazily
and no work done ! —

Benvenuto Cellini a very worthy Book,
gives more insight into Italy than fifty Leo-
Tenths would do. 1 A remarkable man Ben-
venuto and in a remarkable scene. Religion
and Art with Ferocity and Sensuality ; pol-
ished Respect with stormful Independence;
faithfully obedient subjected to Popes who
are not Hierarchs but plain scoundrels ! Life
was far sunnier and richer then; but a time
of change (loudly called for) was advancing, —
and but lately has reached its crisis. — Goethe's
Essay on Benvenuto quite excellent. —

1 The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, compared
with Roscoe's Life of Leo X.

186

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Pope's Homer's Odyssey, surely a very-
false and tho' ingenious and talented yet bad
translation. The old Epics are great because
they (musically) show us the whole world of
those old days : a modern Epic that did the
like would be equally admired, and for us far
more admirable. But where is the genius that
can write it ? Patience ! Patience ! he will
be here one of these centuries.

Is Homer or Shakespeare the greater ge-
nius? Were hard to say. Shakespeare's
world is the more complex, the more spir-
itual, and perhaps his mastery over it was
equally complete. 'We are such stuff as
Dreams are made on ' : there is the basis of
a whole Poetic universe; to that mind all
forms, and figures of men and things, would
become ideal. —

What is a Whole ? Or how, specially, does
a Poem differ from Prose ? Ask not a defini-
tion of it in words, which can hardly express
common Logic correctly; study to create in
thyself a feeling of it : like so much else, it
cannot be made clear, hardly even to thy
thought (?) — Alas, 'white men know no-
thing.'

I see some vague outline of what a Whole
is : also how an individual Delineation may
be ' informed with the Infinite ' ; may appear
hanging in the universe of Time & Space

187

NOTE BOOK OF

(partly) : in which case is it a Poem and a
Whole ? Therefore, are the true Heroic Poems
of these times to be written with the ink of
Science I Were a correct philosophic Biog-
raphy of a Man (meaning by philosophic all
that the name can include) the only method
of celebrating him ? The true History (had
we any such, or even generally any dream of
such) the true Epic Poem? — I partly begin
to surmise so. — What after all is the true pro-
portion of St. Matthew to Homer, of the
Crucifixion to the Fall of Troy!

On the whole I wish I could define to
myself the true relation of moral genius to
poetic genius; of Religion to Poetry. Are
they one and the same, different forms of the
same ; and if so which is to stand higher, the
Beautiful or the Good ? Schiller and Goethe
seem to say the former, as if it included the
latter and might supersede it : how truly I
can never well see. — Meanwhile that the fac-
ulties always go together seems clear. It is a
gross calumny on human nature to say that
there ever was a mind of surpassing talent
that did not also surpass in capability of
virtue; and vice versa ; nevertheless in both
cases there are ' female geniuses" too, minds
that admire and receive, but can hardly
create; I have observed in these also the
taste for Religion and for Poetry go to-

THOMAS CARLYLE.

gether. The most wonderful words that I ever
heard of being uttered by man are those in
the four Evangelists, by Jesus of Nazareth.
Their intellectual talent is hardly inferior to
their moral. On this subject, if I live, I hope
to have much to say.

And so ends my first Notebook, after nigh
eight years, — here at Craigenputtock, at my
own hearth, and tho' amid trouble and dispir-
itment enough, yet with better outlooks
than I had then. My outward world is not
much better (yes it is, though I have far less
money), but my inward is ; and I can prom-
ise myself never to be so miserable again.
Farewell ye that have fallen asleep since
then; farewell, tho' distant perhaps near me !
Welcome the Good and Evil that is to come,
thro' which God assist me to struggle wisely !
What have I to look back on ? Little or
nothing. What forward to ? My own small
sickly force amid wild enough whirlpools!
The more diligently apply it then. NOg

1 M The night cometh." John ix. 4.

[89

SECOND
NOTE BOOK.

Begun in London.

August 4* Left Craigenputtock, 1 and my
1831. kind little wife, Alick 2 driving

me, at 2 o'clock in the morn-
ing. Shipped at Glencaple 3 : hazy day : saw
Esbie 4 in the steerage ; talked mysticism with
him during six weary hours we had to stay
at Whitehaven. Reimbarkment there, amid
bellowing and tumult and fiddling unutter-
able : all like a spectral vision — ' she is [not]
there.' St. Bees Head. Man with the Nose.
Sleep in the steamboat cabin: confusion
worse confounded. Morning : views of Chesh-
ire, the Rock, Liverpool and steamboats.
Boy — Man.

1 For a long contemplated visit to London in the hope
of finding a publisher for Sartor Resartus, which had
just been completed.

2 His brother.

3 Five miles beyond Dumfries.

* An old acquaintance, described in a letter of 27 Nov.,
1818, to Mr. Robert Mitchell, asa" double-refined trav-
elling tutor. "—Early Letters, i. 191.

I 9 I

NOTE BOOK OF

5* 7^ in the morning. Land at Liver-
pool : all abed at Maryland street. 1 Boy
Alick 2 accompanies me over Liverpool. Ex-
change-Dome : dim view there. Dust, toil ;
cotton-bags, hampers, repairing ships, dis-
loading stones. Carson 3 a hash. Melancholy
body of the name of Sloan. Wifekin's assi-
duity in caring for me. 4

6^ (Saturday) taken to one Johnstone a
Frenchified Lockerby man,
who leads me to 'Change; place in 'the In-
dependent Tallyho, Sir! ' — See George John-
stone, Surgeon, whom I had unearthed the
night before. Patient of his. He dines with
us. Walk on the Terrace near the Cemetery.
Have seen the Steam-coaches 5 in the morn-
ing. Liverpool a dismembered aggregate of
streets and sandpits. Market-hubbub.

1 Home of Mrs. Carlyle's uncle, Mr. John Welsh,
"a most munificent, affectionate and nobly honorable
kind of man." Reminiscences i. 156; see also pp. 166-168.

2 Son of Mr. John Welsh.

3 A Liverpool doctor. See Letters, ii. 367.

4 "Delightful it was" Carlyle writes to his wife on
August 11, "on opening my trunk to find everywhere
traces of my good 'coagitor's' [coadjutor's] care and
love. Heaven reward thee, my clear-headed, warm-
hearted, dearest little Screamikin ! " Life, ii. 165.

5 The Steam-coaches were still novelties ; the first ex-
perimental trip with a steam engine was on the Liverpool
& Manchester railway in October, 1829. The celebra-
tion of the opening of the road for regular steam travel
and traffic was on Sept. 15, 1830, a memorable event
made tragic by the death of Mr. Huskisson.

192

THOMAS CARLYLE.

8*! 1 x Oleum ricini. Go out to find Esbie :
he calls on me. Confused family din-
ner; do. tea. G. Johnstone again. Talk:
to bed.

9th Off on Monday morning. Shipped
thro' the Mersey; coached thro' East-
ham, Chester, Overton (in Wales) Ellesmere,
Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Birmingham :
attempt at tea there. Discover (not without
laughter) the villainy of the Liverpool Coach-
Bookers. Henley in Arden; Stratford on
Avon (horses lost there); get in to sleep.
Oxford at 3 in the morning. Out again there :
chill but pleasant. Henley, Maidenhead &c.
Arrive full of sulphur at the Whfite] Horse Cel-
lar, Piccadilly: dismount at the Regent Circus,
and am wheeled (not whirled) hither, 2 about
half past 10; poor Jack waiting all the while
at the Angel, Islington. Talk together when
he returns; dine at an Eatinghouse among
Frenchmen, one of whom ceases eating to
hear me talk of the St. Simonians. Leave
my card at the Lord Advocate's, 3 with
promise to call next morning. Sulphurous
enough.

1 The dates from the 8th to the 14th inclusive are
wrong by a day in advance.

2 To 6 Woburn Buildings, Tavistock Square, the
dwelling of Edward Irving's brother George, where
Dr. John Carlyle lodged.

3 Jeffrey.

13 193

NOTE BOOK OF

11th (Wednesday) Go to the Advocate's:
am kindly received, the
A. looking better than I expected : a Dr.
Baron there (whom I knew not as such till
after he was gone). Napier's Letter in the
hands of the Postman. 1 Am advised to try
Murray with my MS. rather ; get a letter to
him j see him with difficulty ; send over my
Papers, to have the answer affirmative or
negative next Wednesday. A tall squinting
man; not of the wisest aspect; seems to
know me, and smiles on my description of
Breck 2 (the dog! I fear he will make me
greet on it yet) : the favour of the Ministry,
through Jeffrey's interest, buoys me up with
him. See the Badamses that evening (B.
had already called on me very shortly after
my arrival) : poor B. seemed flushed and to
have been drinking; his Wife a true soul,
talented, true, but girlish; her mother a
gigantic French-woman, now Wife of one
Kenny a Playwright. Look in upon the
Montagues as I return : Procter standing
at the door; 3 Mrs. M. in the dusk, colder

1 Napier was Jeffrey's successor as editor of the Edin-
burgh Review. His letter enclosed one of introduction of
Carlyle to Mr. Rees, of the publishing house of Long-
man & Co. 2 " Dreck," that is, Teufelsdreck.

3 The Basil Montagus ; Procter, the poet who wrote
under the pseudonym of Barry Cornwall, was their son-
in-law. Carlyle's relations with the Montagus had be-
gun during his visit to London with the Bullers in 1824.
See Life, i. 120; Reminiscences, ii. 112, 127-130.

194

THOMAS CARLYLE.

than might have been expected, yet with
professions enough. 1

1 2th (Thursday) Go out to see about a Seal-
cutter at Mrs. M.'s; am
by her detained with a most vituperative his-
tory of the Badams Bankrupt, or a cheat dis-
covered. Seems to me all overcharged; at
best common-place, vindictive, nowise mag-
nanimous. Speaking of John, almost get
provoked, yet do not. Alas ! \ all things go
round and round ' there : old friends utterly
gone there; I too am no longer necessary.
The people to be pitied ; the ' noble lady ' is
alone, with her so shewy Iety? Can say no-
thing of the Seal; and now I have hardly

1 See for the filling out of this and the preceding en-
tries the letter to Mrs. Carlyle of that date. Life ii. 164.
Carlyle had become acquainted with Mr. Badams, a
friend of Irving, in 1824, and had spent two months with
him in that year at Birmingham. " This man, one of
the most sensible, clear-headed persons I have ever met
with, seems also one of the kindest," is what he writes of
him to his mother. Life, i. 229. "A most inventive,
light-hearted, and genially gallant kind of man ; sadly
eclipsed within the last five years, ill-married, plunged
amid grand mining speculations, which were and showed
themselves sound, but not till they had driven him to
drink brandy instead of water, and next year to die mis-
erably overwhelmed." Reminiscences, i. 93.

2 The ' Noble Lady ' was Edward Irving's epithet
for Mrs. Montagu. Irving had introduced Carlyle to
the Montagus in 1824, and in his " Reminiscences of Ir-
ving" Carlyle gives a vivid description of the Montagu
household. Reminiscences, ii. 123-134.

195

NOTE BOOK OF

time remaining to write a most confused Let-
ter to my Own, which I do in all sorrow at
such loss of time, and the sight of such havoc
and dismemberment as 6 years have brought.
The Montagues are wicnderliche Menschen j 1
worth what?

13t. h (Friday) Out to Longman's with my
Napier Letter. State to them
my German Lit. History : they " decline the
article," civilly enough. Shall I try them with
Dreck if Murray fail ? Schwerlich. 2 On to the
India House : see Strachey 3 and talk con-
sentaneous Politics: invited to Sh[ooter's] Hill
for Saturday. Returning call on Bowring, 4
he is in the country, but coming and going.
Steer over to Allan Cunningham's 5 at night.
(Have a Letter from my little Hermitess which
makes me glad and sad.) Allan as of old :
full of honesty and loud talk; I promised

l ' Strange people.' 2 Hardly.

3 The Stracheys were old acquaintances. Mrs.
Strachey was the sister of Mrs. Buller. Mr. Strachey
was a Somersetshire gentleman, ex-Indian, an exam-
iner in the India House. See Reminiscences, ii. 49, 102,
124 et al. Often mentioned in Life.

4 Dr., afterward Sir John, Bowring, a well-known radi-
cal and man of letters ; described in a letter to Mrs.
Carlyle, Life, ii. 172.

5 At this date more or less a London celebrity, "a
genuine, interesting man." "Solid Dumfries mason,
with a surface polish," and a touch of native genius.
For description of him, see Reminiscences, i. 175 ; ii. 169.
See also Life, i. 220.

196

THOMAS CARLYLE.

something of dining there next week. Have
bought this Book in the mg.

14th Write to Goethe, to Buller, to Fraser.
Off to Shooter's Hill. See Mrs. Ba-
dams by the way. She has engaged Godwin
to meet us at tea ; and countermanded him,
and again talks of countermanding him for
still a new night. Shooter's Hill looks as
well as ever * : Strachey as talkative and full
of vivacity as ever : his wife has an unhealthy,
faded air; looks rather afraid of me, yet
friendly and earnest. Kitty 2 is Mrs Phillips,
a mother, and almost a widow (as I hear).

Foolish Miss whom the Unregene-

rate demolishes with a shovel-hat. 3 Awake
in the country with rooks (on the 15 th or Sun-
day), beautiful morning ; views of the Thames
and Essex; talk, dinner; return (forgetting
my umbrella) by Woolwich, Greenwich and
the river to Tower Stairs ; thence home, where
a Letter lies from Bowring ' to breakfast on
Tuesday.' Shave, wash, drink tea ; argue on
the everlasting ' spirit of the time ' with Jack ;

1 " I have seldom seen a pleasanter place, a panorama
of green, flowery, clean, and decorated country all round ;
an umbrageous little Park, with roses, gardens ; a modest-
ly excellent House." Reminiscences, ii. 124.

2 Kitty Kirkpatrick, cousin of Mrs. Strachey, with
whom she had been living at the time of Carlyle's visit
to London in 1824. She is described charmingly in
Reminiscences, ii. 117, 125.

3 Cf. letter to Mrs. Carlyle, Life, ii, 170.

197

NOTE BOOK OF

bolt off, and write thus far: will now read
my Goody's Letter again, and therewith Gute
nachtf (15 th 10 24 o'clock at night — up
stairs.) —

15 th (believe I misdated on Sunday, and
that Monday was the i5 l . h ) Went to
breakfast with the Jeffreys : all very kind.
The Adv. entered in his yellow night-gown,
with his greyish face, clear roguish eyes, and
said : " Why Charly * I've got cholera I be-
lieve." Nichts welter passim, except that I
got a frank for Goody. Empson 3 not at home.
The Seal-cutter not to be found (in Warwick
Court). Write to my Jeannie and my Mother :
barely in time for the Post. Go to Irving's to
tea; talk of St. Simonism, etc. ; Irving at heart
the old friend. To dine with Drummond 4
(Banker) in his company on Friday. Off for
Southampton Row to meet Godwin. Eheu !
find there the French woman with Mrs. God-
win, presently afterwards the Badamses. Then
a multifarious collection of Dilettanti, Play-

l His wife Charlotte. 2 " Nothing further occurred."

3 Jeffrey's son-in-law. See Reminiscences, ii. 269; and
Correspondence of Goethe and Carlyle, p. 282.

4 Henry Drummond, a worldly mystic, the most im-
portant figure in the sect that grew up around Irving,
and the chief of the Apostles of the Catholic Apostolic
Church, which still (1898) survives with a faint and what
seems like an expiring life in America and in Germany,
as well as in England. See Reminiscences, ii. 187, 198 ;
Life, ii. 177.

198

THOMAS CARLYLE.

wrights and Nondescripts : G. has in the
meanwhile arrived. A little thickset man,
with bushy eyebrows (white), grey open eyes,
large coarse nose and chin ; bald, hoary, yet
brisk, and hearty of aspect, tho' old. He
speaks little: what he says has a certain
epigrammatic effect-character. Ask him, after
some skirmishing about the bush, what he
thinks of Literary London now as compared
with the same object of old. He answers
that old men always prefer the bygone time;
that many of his friends are now gone ; but
that on the whole the old was the best.
' Deeper questions were mooted.' I des-
cribe to him somewhat of my notions about
cooperation, proselytism and so forth: he
looks gratified, seems beginning to talk, when
they force him up to — play whist, and I only
see him for the rest of the night ! A furious
jingle of pianos ensues ; Rossini's operatic me-
lodies almost driving me deaf; and so from
amid the chaotic jargoning, I glide off, seeing
symptoms of a Supper m. the other room. God-
win has not impressed me with very high no-
tions of him : yet I still see him with his quick
short laugh (in the end of which lies a chirl,
as there did in Gilbert Burns's), parson's black
coat, firm position in his chair, and general
handfest 1 appearance. Will try to see him
again under better circumstances. — He drinks
l" Sturdy."

199

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* strong green tea ' by himself.— After ten at
night, John brings up a certain young Mr.
Glen, of whom much might be made : a figura-
tive mind, eager for insight ; self-helping: but
very talkative and confused ; hovering as yet
between light and darkness. 1 Bed at twelve.

16th (whereon I now write). Awoke some
time before seven ; sickish, unslept ;
must have drugs: am for breakfasting with
Bowring. Not very well.

27 th Have some time ago discontinued
this Journal-writing; my Wife's Let-
ters 2 being properly a Journal. This afternoon
I am just returned from Enfield. 3 Bibliopolic
speculation languid enough : i nothing mov-
ing upon wheels ' : ach Nichis /

Is all Education properly an unfolding:
does all Knowledge already exist in the mind,
and Education only uncover it? There is
something in this: but not what is here (so
ill) expressed.

1 " Glen was a young graduate of Glasgow, studying
law in London, of very considerable though utterly con-
fused talent. Ultimately went mad, and was boarded
in a farmhouse near Craigenputtock, within reach of
us, where in seven or eight years he died." Life, ii. 200, n.
See also pp. 225, 278, 403, and Letters, i. 336.

2 His letters to his wife.

3 Where the Badams's lived.

20O

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Vision of all the suits of " Clothes " you
have ever worn ! —

October Wife arrived ten days ago ; we here
1 th quietly enough (in 4 Ampton Street) ,
and the world jogging on at the old
rate. 1 Jack must be by this time in Paris.
Teufelsdreck, after various perplexed destinies,
returned to me, and now lying safe in his box.
There must he continue, till the Book-trade
revive a little ; if forever, what matter ? The
Book contents me little ; yet perhaps there is
material in it : in any case I did my best. —
To see Gustave d'Eichthal 2 the St. Simonian
this night !

l"The beggarly history of poor Sartor among the
Blockheadisms is not worth my recording ... In short,
finding that whereas I had got ^100 (if memory serve)
for Schiller six or seven years before, and for Sartor * at
least thrice as good,' I could not only not get ^200, but
even get no ' Murray ' or the like to publish it on ' half
profits,' . . . I said, 'We will make it No then ; wrap up
our MS. ; wait till this ' Reform Bill ' uproar abate; and
see, and give our brave little Jeannie a sight of this big Ba-
bel, which is so altered since I saw it last (in 1824-25) ! '
—She came right willingly ; and had, in spite of her ill-
health, which did not abate but the contrary, an interest-
ing, cheery, and, in spite of our poor arrangements, a
really pleasant winter here. We lodged in Ampton
Street, Gray's Inn Lane, clean and decent pair of rooms,
and quiet decent people . . . reduced from wealth to
keeping lodgings, and prettily resigned to it; really
good people." Reminiscences, i. 92.

2 ' ' The most interestin g acquaintances we have m ade,
wrote Mrs. Carlyle in December, 1831, " are the St. Si-
monians . . . Gustave d'Eichthal is a creature to

201

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Their Reform Bill lost (on Saturday morn-
ing at six o'clock) by a majority of 41. 1 The
Politicians will have it, the people must rise.
The People will do nothing half so foolish —
for the present. London seems altogether
quiet (however, I will go out and see) ; here
they are afraid of Scotland, in Scotland of us.
' Spanish banditti ' — the sign of a general
apprehensiveness. — Poor Jeffrey very ill, but
not dangerously.

On Saturday saw Sir J. Macintosh (at Jef-
frey's), and looked at and listened to him tho'
without speech. A broadish, middle-sized,
gray-headed man; well dressed and with a
plain courteous bearing; grey intelligent (un-
healthy yellow-whited) eyes, in which plays a

love at first sight — so gentle and trustful and earnest-
looking, ready to do and suffer all for his faith." Life,
ii. 224.

Gustave d'Eichthal had a friendly acquaintance with
Emerson as well as with the Carlyles. See Letters, ii. 113.

On Emerson's first visit to Carlyle, at Craigenputtock,
in 1833, he brought to him from Rome a letter from
d'Eichthal. See Emerson 's English Traits, p. 18, where,
however, the name of d'Eichthal is not mentioned.

1 It was between seven and eight o'clock, in the morn-
ing of Saturday, the 8th of October, after an exciting
debate for five successive nights, that the House of
Lords rejected the Reform Bill, which had passed the
Commons on the 21st of September, by a majority of
one hundred and nine. Carlyle's lack of interest in a
matter of such grave concern to the nation, and one
which was stirring the people more deeply than they had
been stirred for many years, is noticeable as an illustra-
tion of his engrossment with things of still deeper import.

202

THOMAS CARLYLE.

dash of cautions vivacity (uncertain whether
Fear or latent Ire ; remember old Dr. Flem-
ing's 1 ) ; triangular unmeaning nose; business
mouth and chin : on the whole, a sensible,
official air, not without a due spicing of hy-
pocrisy and something of Pedantry — both no
doubt involuntary. The man is a whig Philo-
sopher and Politician, such as the time yields,
our best of that sort, — which will soon be ex-
tinct. — He was talking mysteriously with
with other " Hon. Members," about " what
was to be done." — Something a la Dogberry
the thing looked to me ; tho' I deny not that
it is a serious conjuncture ; only believe that
any change has some chance to be for the
better, and so see it all with composure.

Meanwhile what were the true duty of a
man; were it to stand utterly aloof from Poli-
tics (not ephemeral only, for that of course,
but generally from all speculation about so-
cial systems &c. &c.) ; or is not perhaps the
very want of this time, an infinite want of
Governors, of Knowledge how to govern it-
self? — Canst thou in any measure spread
abroad Reverence over the hearts of men ?
That were a far higher task than any other.
Is it to be done by Art ; or are men's minds as
yet shut to Art, and open only at best to ora-

1" A good old Dr. Fleming, 'a clergyman of mark*
informer years in Edinburgh." Reminiscences, ii. 103.

203

NOTE BOOK OF

tory; not fit for a Meister, but only for a
better and better Teufelsdreck / Dentt und
schweig 1 1

The stupidity I labour under is extreme.
All dislocated, prostrated, obfuscated ; cannot
even speak, much less write. What a dogged
piece of toil lies before me, before I get afoot
again! Set doggedly to it then.

When Goethe and Schiller say or insinuate
that Art is higher than Religion, do they
mean perhaps this: That whereas Religion
represents (what is the essence of Truth for
men) the Good as infinitely (the word is em-
phatic) different from the Evil, but sets them
in a state of hostility (as in Heaven and
Hell), — Art likewise admits and inculcates
this quite infinite difference ; but without hos-
tility, with peacefulness ; like the difference
of two Poles which ca?inot coalesce, yet do
not quarrel, nay should not quarrel for both
are essential to the whole ? In this way is
Goethe's morality to be considered as a higher
(apart from its comprehensiveness, nay uni-
versality) than has hitherto been promul-
gated ? — Sehr einseitig / 2 Yet perhaps there
is a glimpse of the truth here.

Mary Wollstonecraft's Life by Godwin :

1 ** Think and be silent."

2 " Very one-sided," or "partial " view.

204

THOMAS CARLYLE.

an Ariel imprisoned in a brickbat ! It is a
real tragedy, and of the deepest: sublimely
virtuous endowment ; in practice misfortune,
suffering, death, — by Destiny and also by
Desert. — An English Mignon; Godwin an
honest Boor that loves her, but cannot guide
or save her. — Ever wondrous is the pilgrim-
age of man ! —

Shalll write about Milliner? — Gott weiss. 1

1 Uh October. Last night, saw Mill and
d'Eichthal (Brother of Gus-
tave the St. Simonian), and discoursed largely
upon men and things. M. continues to please
me. —

Strange tendency everywhere noticeable
to speculate on Men not on Man. Another
branch of the Mechanical Temper. Vain
hope to make mankind happy by Politics!
You cannot drill a regiment of knaves into a
regiment of honest men, enregiment and or-
ganise them as cunningly as you will. Give
us the honest men, and the well-ordered regi-
ment comes of itself. Reform one man (re-

l " God knows." Carlyle had already, in his article
on " German Playwrights," 1829, written at considerable
length about Milliner, of whom he had said, "no Play-
wright of this age makes such a noise as Miillner" . . .
but " we must take liberty to believe . . . that he ' is no
dramatist. ' "

205

NOTE BOOK OF

form thy own inner man), it is more than
scheming out reforms for a nation. 1

Hear talk of a " Convention of Delegates "
about to assemble from all the four winds
here at London, to expedite the Reform Bill.
— Some noises in the streets last night ; but
as yet no reports of rioting : general or serious
rioting for the present I do not expect.

Now to Milliner; not to write upon him ;
he is not worth that : but to scrawl upon him
and get him off my hands. Allons 7 — Eheu!

22 nd October. The principle of Laissez-faire
fast verging, as I read the
symptoms, to a consummation. Let people
go on, each without guidance, each striving
only to gain advantage for himself, the result
will be this : Each, endeavouring by " com-
petition " to outstrip the others, will en-
deavour by all arts to manufacture an article
(not better) only cheaper and showier than
his neighbour. As we see in all things ! A
newly built house is more like a tent than a
house ; no Table that I fall in with here can

1 " To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man
will undertake, and all but foolish men know that the
only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each
begins and perfects on himself." With these words
Carlyle had ended his paper on " Signs of the Times,"
in 1829.

206

THOMAS CARLYLE.

stand on its legs; a pair of good Shoes is
what I have not been able to procure for the
last ten years. The Tradesman, in every de-
partment, has become an eye-servant ; and
could not help it, without being a martyr, —
as indeed all men should be.

Hence too comes the so incessant fluctua-
tion in the modes of things. Is the taste of
the article better ? Its durableness increased ?
Its end more completely answered? Its
utility in any way extended ? No : generally
altogether the reverse. The childishness of
men (often it is their bad passions) must be
ministered to; that is the surest course for
getting payment : so the workman turns his
whole effort in that direction.

But if such is the condition of things in
regard to the Useful which is said to promote
itself what will it be in regard to the Beauti-
ful, the Moral, which is of no value till once
it be had posse ssion of! Look round on all
hands and see — in the Church, in the Arts,
in Literature. {This last part due to Mill.)

Expect not a pair of tolerable "shoes"
(even tolerably made ones) here ! x They are

1 Even in later life Carlyle used to complain humor-
ously that no tolerable shoes could be found in London ;
and to declare that his only pair of well-made shoes came
from an old shoemaker in Dumfries, that he had worn
them for years, ' had them upper-leathered and under-
leathered,' and they would last a long while yet.

207

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all made incalculably too wide in the instep :
thou puttest them on (and payest for them)
easily ; they pinch and becorn thy toes all
the time thou wearest them ; and daily thou
growlest over the " Competition Principle,"
exemplified here, as in all other provinces
lowest and highest. — Important remark!

One problem lies before man in all ages
and places; Ascertain what thou canst do,
and do it. Here in London, lies a second
problem often harder than the first : having
done thy work, convince the world that thou
hast done it.

John told me of having seen in Holborn a
man walking steadily along with some six
Baskets all piled above each other, his Name
and Address written in large characters on
each, so that he exhibited a stature of some
twelve feet, and so by the six separate an-
nouncements had his existence sufficiently
proclaimed. The trade of this man was
Basket-making ; but he had found it needful
to study a quite new Trade, that of walking
with six (or twelve) baskets on his head in a
crowded street.

In like manner : Colburn and Bentley the
Booksellers are known to expend Ten thou-
sand pounds annually (I had this from Dilke, 1

l Editor and proprietor of the Athenceum, father of Sir
Charles Dilke.

208

THOMAS CARLYLE.

who had it from their man of business) on
what they call " advertising," more commonly
called puffing.

Puffing (which is simply the second trade,
that of Basket-carrying) flourishes in all coun-
tries ; but London is the true scene of it ;
having this one quality beyond all other cities :
a quite immeasurable size. It is rich also,
stupid and ignorant, beyond example ; thus,
in all respects, the true Goshen of Quacks.

Every man I meet with mourns over this
state of matters ; no one thinks it remediable ;
you must do as the others do, or they will get
the start of you, or tread you under foot.
" All true, Mr. Carlyle ; but "— I say: " All
true, Mr. Carlyle; and" — The first begin-
ning of a remedy is that some one believe a
remedy possible; believe that if he cannot
live by truth, then he can die by it. Dost
thou believe it ? Then is the new Era
begun I 1

In a better time this huge monster of a city
will contract itself into some third part of its

1 Of Dilke " I have little to say, except that the man is
very tolerant, hospitable ; not without a sense for the good,
but with little power to follow it, and defy the evil. That is
the temper in which I find many here ; they deplore the
prevalence of dishonesty, quackery, and stupidity; many
do it (like Dilke) with apparent heartiness and sorrow ; but
to believe that it can be resisted, that it will and shall be
resisted, herein poor Teufelsdreck is well-nigh singular."
Letters, i. 319.

1 4 209

NOTE BOOK OF

present bulk. The Landed People have
almost no business here except incidentally ;
they should be governing in their respective
districts; not here flaunting and flirting.
Were the quite superfluous population of
London shipped off, it would shrink to the
third part of its bulk, and be still large
enough.

Potatoes (one penny per lb.) are exactly
ten times the price they are in Annandale.
(Of their quality I say nothing.) So is it in
all things, in a less or greater ratio : so many
mortals living together hamper and hinder
one another in innumerable ways.

How men are hurried here ; how they are
haunted and terrifically chased into double
quick speed; so that in self-defence they
must not stay to look at one another ! Miser-
able is the scandal mongery and evil idle
speaking of the country population : more
frightful still the total ignorance and mutual
heedlessness of these poor souls in populous
city pent. " Each passes on, quick transient ;
regarding not the other or his woes." Each
must button himself together, and take no
thought (not even for evil) of his neighbour.
There in their little cells divided by partitions
of brick or board, they sit strangers, unknow-
ing, unknown ; like Passengers in some huge

210

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Ship, each within his own cabin : Alas ! and
the Ship is Life, and the voyage is from Eter-
nity to Eternity !

Everywhere there is the most crying
want of Government, a true all-ruining
anarchy : no one has any knowledge of Lon-
don in which he lives; it is a huge aggre-
gate of little systems, each of which is again
a small Anarchy, the members of which do
not work together but scramble against each
other.

The Soul, what can properly be called the
Soul, lies dead in the bosom of man ; starting
out only in mad ghastly Nightwalkings (e. g.
" the gift of tongues x ") : Ignorance eclipses
all things with its owlet wings; man walks
he knows not whither; walks and wanders
till he walk into the jaws of Death, and is
there devoured. — Nevertheless, God is in it :
here, even here, is the Revelation of the In-
finite in the Finite; a majestic Poem (tragic,
comic or epic), couldst thou but read it and
recite it ! Watch it then ; study it, catch the
secret of it, and proclaim the same in such
accent as is given thee. — Alas ! the spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak.

Milliner is not written or perhaps worth
writing; however the rude materials of it are

1 " In the course of the winter, sad things had occurred
in Irving's history. His enthusiastic studies and preach-

211

NOTE BOOK OF

on paper, and lie tied up with packthread,
abiding their time. — I am now to write
something {what thing ?) for the Edin r Review.
Two subjects I have; both distant, both
vague. Sad struggle I shall have! "On
man," " On Authors " : which ? Or neither ?

Serious thoughts are rising in me about the
possibility of attempting a Course of Lectures
here. 3 The subject should be " Things in
general " (under some more dignified title) :
but as yet the ground is quite unknown to
me ; the whole process towards the cathedra,
even much of the process there lies hidden.
Let me look and study. —

What are the uses, what is the special pro-
vince of oral teaching at present ? Wherein
superior to the written or printed mode, and
when? — For one thing, as I can see, Lon-
don is fit for no higher Art than that of Ora-
tory: they understand nothing of Art;
scarcely one of them anything at all. — But
hast thou any Eloquence ? Ja wokl, ein klein

ings were passing into the practically 'miraculous';
and to me the most doleful of all phenomena, the ' Gift
of Tongues ' had fairly broken out among the crazed
weakliest of his wholly rather dim and weakly flock."
Reminiscences, ii. 204.

1 It was not till the spring of 1837, nearly six years
after the date of the entry, that Carlyle gave his first
Course of Lectures in London. His "Things in Gen-
eral "had dwindled to ' ' German Literature. ' ' See Life,
iii. 97-105.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

weniges, 1 were my tongue once untacked. Ach,
dass es so ware 1 2 —

Have been reading in Hazlitt's Table
Talk: an incessant chew-chewing, the Nut
never cracked, nothing but teeth broken and
bleeding gums. The man has thought
much ; even intently and with vigor : but he
has discovered nothing; been able to believe
nothing. One other sacrifice to the Time ! 3 —
Ritson's Fairy Tales and Old Ballads worth
almost nothing: thickheaded discourteous
boor of an Editor, and almost nothing of the
smallest moment to edit. —

— On Thursday night last (this is Monday,
the 24 th Oct! 1 831) dined with Fonblanque
Editor of the Examiner. An honourable Rad-
ical; might be something better: London-
bred; limited, by education more than by
nature. — Something metallic in the tone of
his voice (like that of the Professor Austin) :
for the rest, a tall, loose, lankhaired, wrinkly,
wintry, vehement looking flail of a man. I

1 " Perhaps so, a little bit."

2 " Ah, would it were so ! "

3 " How many a poor Hazlitt must wander on God's
verdant earth, like the Unblest on burning deserts : pas-
sionately dig wells, and draw up only the dry quicksand ;
believe that he is seeking Truth, yet only wrestle among
endless Sophisms, doing desperate battle as with spectre-
hosts ; and die and make no sign." ' Characteristics.'
Essays, iv. 28.

213

NOTE BOOK OF

reckon him the best of the Fourth Estate
now extant in Britain. — Shall see him again. 1

Allan Cunningham with us, last night.
Jane calls him a genuine Dumfriesshire ma-
son still ; and adds that it is delightful to see
a genuine man of any sort. Allan was, as
usual, full of Scottish-anecdotic talk. Right
by instinct j has no principles or creed that I
can see : but excellent old Scottish habits of
character : an interesting man. —

— Walter Scott left Town yesterday on his
way to Naples. He is to proceed from Ply-
mouth in a Frigate, which the Government
have given him a place in. Much run after
here (it seems) ; but he is old and sick and
cannot enjoy it : has had two shocks of Palsy,
and seems altogether in a precarious way. —
To me he is and has been an object of very
minor interest for many many years ; the Nov-
el-wright of his time, its favourite child, and
therefore an almost worthless one. Yet is there
something in his deep recognition of the
worth of the Past, perhaps better than any-
thing he has expressed about it : into which I

1 Cf. Letters, ii. 359. Albany Fonblanque was editor
of The Examiner from 1830 to 1847. He was in the main
a disciple of Bentham ; and by his wit and vigorous in-
telligence he secured a wide hearing. His England un-
der Seven Administrations (3 vols. 1837), a selection of his
editorial articles, is a good record of current opinion
during the reign of William IV.

214

THOMAS CARLYLE.

do not yet fully see. — Have never spoken
with him (tho' I might sometimes, without
great effort) ; and now probably never shall.

What an advantage has the Pulpit, where
you address men already arranged to hear
you, and in a vehicle which long use has
rendered easy : how infinitely harder when
you have all to create, not the ideas only
and the sentiments, but the symbols and the
mood of mind ! Nevertheless in all cases,
where man addresses man, on his spiritual
interests especially, there is a sacredness,
could we but evolve it, and think and speak
in it. — Consider better what it is thou mean-
est by a symbol; how far thou hast insight
into the nature thereof. —

— Is Art in the old Greek sense possible
for man at this late era ? Or were not (per-
haps) the Founder of a Religion our true
Homer at present? — The whole Soul must
be illuminated, made harmonious: Shake-
speare seems to have had no religion, but his
Poetry. —

— Where is Tomorrow resident even now ?
Somewhere, or somehow, it is, doubt not of
that. On the common theory thou mayest
think thyself into madness on this question.

Society I have for some years been wont
to divide into four classes : Noblemen, Gen-

215

NOTE BOOK OF

tlemen, Gigmen, and Men. When is the De-
fensio Gigmanica to make its appearance ? 1

Priest-ridden, wife-ridden, plague-ridden,

Who escapes his lot ?
Bearing, forbearing, paying, obeying,

Will ye, will ye not.
Child-ridden, tremble at my Doll's pouting :

Fortune, spare me that !

Richard Brothers (1798); a most wonder-
ful madman; believes himself to be the prom-
ised Deliverer of the Jews ; writes a " Letter
to Miss Cott the recorded Daughter of King
David and Future Queen of the Hebrews."
(which I see to-day in the Brit. Museum.) —
Deals exceedingly in study of the Scriptures.
— "Dated from Islington Madhouse March
the 18* 1798." — What became of him
ultimately? 2

1 The notion of the gigman, " one who kept a gig,"
as the type of British Respectability and Philistinism had
struck Carlyle's sense of humour, and recurs often about
this time in his writing. The source of it is given in a
note in his essay on Richter (1830). " In Thurtell's
trial (says the Quarterly Review) occurred the following
colloquy : ' Q. What sort of person was Mr. Weare. A.
He was always a respectable person. Q. What do you
mean by respectable ? A. He kept a gig.' Since then
we have seen a ' Defensio Gigmanica, or apology for the
Gigmen of Great Britain ' composed not without elo-
quence, and which we hope one day to prevail on our
friend, a man of some whims, to give to the public."
Essays, iii. 32 ; cf. id. iv. 150.

2 Brothers was born in 1757, and lived, maintaining

216

THOMAS CARLYLE.

November 2«d- How few people speak for
Truth's sake, even in its
humblest modes! I return from Enfield,
where I have seen Lamb &c &c. Not one
of that class will tell you a straightfor-
ward story, or even a credible one, about
any matter under the sun. All must be
perked up into epigrammatic contrasts, star-
tling exaggerations, claptraps that will get a
plaudit from the galleries ! I have heard a
hundred anecdotes about W. Hazlitt (for ex-
ample) ; yet cannot, by never so much cross-
questioning even, form to myself the smallest
notion of how it really stood with him. —
Wearisome, inexpressibly wearisome to me is
that sort of clatter : it is not walking (to the
end of time you would never advance, for
these persons indeed have no whither);
it is not bounding and frisking in graceful
natural joy; it is dancing — a St. Vitus
dance. Heighho ! —

Charles Lamb I sincerely believe to be in
some considerable degree insane. A more
pitiful, ricketty, gasping, staggering, stam-
mering Tom fool I do not know. 1 He is

his character as madman, enthusiast, and prophet,
till 1824. According to the Dictionary of National Biog-
raphy (1886), "the believers in Brothers are not yet ex-
tinct."

1 Time did not change Carlyle's judgment of Lamb
(see Reminiscences, i. 94), but added to it, "yet something
too of humane, ingenuous, pathetic, sportfully much-
enduring."

217

NOTE BOOK OF

witty by denying truisms, and abjuring good
manners. His speech wriggles hither and
thither with an incessant painful fluctuation ;
not an opinion in it or a fact or even a phrase
that you can thank him for : more like a con-
vulsion fit than natural systole and diastole.
— Besides he is now a confirmed shameless
drunkard ; asks vehemently for gin-and-water
in strangers' houses ; tipples till he is utterly
mad, and is only not thrown out of doors
because he is too much despised for taking
such trouble with him. 1 Poor Lamb ! Poor

1 Knowing what we now know of Lamb's life this
judgment appears unsympathetic and hard. But it was
not unjust to Lamb as he displayed himself to Carlyle.
In October of this year, 1831, Carlyle and his wife went
to stay for three or four days with Mr. and Mrs. Badams
at Enfield. Mr. Alexander Carlyle narrates in a letter
to me an incident which took place during this visit :
" Lamb was present one evening at supper. The Car-
lyles were supping on oat-meal porridge, their usual dish.
Lamb began to quiz Mrs. Carlyle about her queer dish,
and ended by dipping his spoon into her bowl, saying
' Let us taste the stuff anyhow.' Mrs. Carlyle, greatly
annoyed at such ill-breeding and familiarity on the part
of a person she had not met before, gave him a cutting
retort to the effect that, ' your astonishment at my por-
ridge cannot exceed my surprise at your manners,' and
had her bowl removed." In writing to her mother soon
afterward, she said, ' ' Some of them [London literary
men], C. Lamb for instance, would not be tolerated in
any society out of England." Carlyle, too, referred to the
incident in a letter to his brother, Dr. Carlyle, 13 Nov.,
1831, " He [Lamb] also loudly criticized our Scotch por-
ridge that evening, and being swept away, as a trouble-
some insect should, got more and more obstreperous."

218

THOMAS CARLYLE.

England where such a despicable abortion is
named genius! — He said: There are just
two things I regret in English History ; first
that Guy Faux's Plot did not take effect
(there would have been so glorious an explo-
sion); second, that the Royalists did not
hang Milton (then we might have laughed at
them) : &c. &c. Armer Teufel! 1

News of wild riots from Bristol : many
lives lost, much mischief much scandal per-
petrated. The Noodles, if they mind not,
will have an old house about their ears. Sir
C. Wetherell affirmed and re-affirmed that
" there was a reaction, that the people had
ceased to care for reform " &c. &c: argu-
ment, evidence, was of no use; the man's
brain was not to be reached that way; so
the Rascality took another : that of knock-
in a letter now in my possession, undated, but written
probably not far from this time, from Mrs. Procter to
Mrs. Jameson, is the following narrative: "Charles
Lamb dined here on Monday at five, and by seven was
so tipsy he could not stand. Martin Burney carried
him from one room to the other like a sack of coals, he
insisting upon singing ' diddle, diddle, diddle dumpty,
my son John.' He slept until ten and then awoke more
tipsy than before, and between his fits of beating Mar-
tin Burney kept saying, ' please God I never enter this
cursed house again.' He wrote a note the next day beg-
ging pardon, and asking when he may come again. —
Poor Miss Lamb is ill."
1 " Poor devil."

219

NOTE BOOK OF

ing it in with clubs. 1 — O the wondrous wild
ways of this world : how knaves and noodles
rise to the summit, and huge movements of
society must depend on their good pleasure,
on their best insight! — Parvd sapientid, 2 in-
deed ! Why it is Dementia; even with that it
will go on.

Dull, Dull ! yet have a " striking Article "
to write ! I mean to try if I can write a
true one, let it strike or not : would I were
able. The fight must be unspeakable first.
Gott hilfmirf

All the world is in apprehension about the

1 Sir Charles Wetherell, Recorder of Bristol, had been
a determined opponent of the Reform Bill in the House
of Commons. This had made him unpopular in Bristol,
where on the 29th of October he opened the City Ses-
sions. The Mansion House where he took up his resi-
dence was attacked by a mob. Dealt with too timidly
at first, the violence of the mob increased, and for two
days Bristol was given over to arson and plunder.

2 These words are from Chancellor Oxenstiern's
famous saying to his son, as it is usually cited, /, mi fili,
vide quamparva sapientia mundus regitur, " Go, my son,
see with how little wisdom the world is governed." The
correct form of the saying seems to be, An nescis, mi fili,
quantilla prudentia mundus regatur ? ' ' Do you not know,
my son, with how little good sense the world may be
governed? " The son was hesitating, on account of his
inexperience, to accept a mission to which he had been
appointed. Buchmann, Gefiugelte Wb'rte, 1884, S. 310.
4 Thou little thinkest,' said Selden, ' what a little foolery
governs the world.'

220

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Cholera Pestilence ; * which indeed seems ad-
vancing towards us with a frightful, slow,
unswerving constancy. For myself I cannot
say that- it costs me great suffering: we are
all appointed once to die ; Death is the grand
sum-total of it all. —

Generally now it seems to me as if this
Life were but the inconsiderable portico of
man's Existence, which afterwards in new,
mysterious environment were to be con-
tinued without end. I say, ' seems to me; *
for the proof of it were hard to state by Logic;
it is the fruit of Faith ; begins to show itself
with more and more decisiveness, the instant
you have dared to say : Be it either way !
The ho he Bedeutung des Entsagen! 1 — But on

1 This was the last great visitation of cholera to Eng-
land. It was a blessing in disguise, for it compelled at-
tention to the public health, which led to the sanitary
measures that have gradually made England the best
protected country in the world against pestilence and
epidemic disease. For the wisdom by which these mea-
sures were devised and carried out, England is mainly in-
debted to the venerable, still living, Sir John Simon,
K.C.B., who had charge of them as the Medical Officer
of the Privy Council.

2 "The deep significance of renunciation." ' The great
doctrine of Entsagen,' as Carlyle calls it in his essay on
Novalis (1829) was one that he had learned for himself
from life, but for which Goethe had given him the word.
" Well did the wisest of our time write : ' It is only with
Renunciation (Entsagen) that Life, properly speaking,
can be said to begin." Sartor Resartus, Book ii. ch. ix.
This word Entsagen Carlyle had cut upon a seal, which
he and his wife frequently used. An engraving of the

221

NOTE BOOK OF

the whole, our conception of Immortality
(as Dreck too has it) 1 depends on that of
Time ; which latter is the deepest belonging
to Philosophy, and the one perhaps wherein
modern Philosophy has earned its best tri-
umph. Believe that there properly is no
Space and no Time, how many contradic-
tions become reconciled ! — 2

" Sports " are all gone from among men :
there is now no holiday either for rich or
poor. Hard toiling, then hard drinking, or
hard fox-hunting : this is not the era of sport,
but of martyrdom and persecution. Will the
new morning never dawn? — It requires a
certain vigour of the imagination, and of the
social faculties before Amusement, popular
Sport, can exist; which vigour at this era is
all but total inanimation. Nay, you have to
argue and redargue (with most men) before
they will admit that it is not total. — Do but
think of the Christmas Carols and Games ;
the Abbots of Unreason, the Maypoles &c
&c! Then look at your Manchesters on
Saturday ; and on Sunday ! —

" Education " is beyond being so much as

seal is in Early Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, etc. Ed-
ited by David G. Ritchie, London, 1889.

1 In Book iii. ch. viii of Sartor.

2 " Time and Space are but quiddities, not entities."
Essays, i. 143.

222

THOMAS CARLYLE.

despised : we must praise it when it is not
Zteducation, or an utter annihilation of what
it professes to foster. The best-educated man
you will often find to be the Artizan, at all
rates the man of Business. For why ? He
has put forth his hand, and operated on Na-
ture ; must actually attain some true insight
or he cannot live. — The worst-educated man
is usually your man of Fortune. He has not
put forth his hand upon anything, except
upon his Bell-rope. Your scholar proper,
generally too your so-called man of Letters,
is a thing with clearer vision — thro' the hun-
dredth part of an eye. A Burns is infinitely
better educated than a Byron. — 1

Authors must unite; must form themselves
into a Corporation, into a Church. It is one of
my prophecies that they one day will. In this
present race there is not virtue enough to form
a Drinking Club. But what then? Other races
and innumerable centuries are coming. —

A common persuasion among serious ill-
informed persons that the end of the world is
at hand : Henry Drummond, E. Irving, and
all that class. — So was it at the beginning of
the Christian era ; say rather, at the termina-
tion of the Pagan one.

1 The thoughts in the preceding paragraph are devel-
oped in a passage near the beginning of Carlyle's article
on " Corn-Law Rhymes," which appeared in the Edin-
burgh Review in 1832.

223

NOTE BOOK OF

Which is the most ignorant creature of his
class even in Britain ? Generally speaking,
the Cockney, the London-bred man; and for
reasons. He has no Libraries, no schools, no
clergy : nothing but a workshop, where indeed
he is the expertest of men. — In literature, think
of Heraud, Lamb, P., 1 &c. &c. — What does
the Cockney boy know of the muffin he eats ?
Simply that a hawker brings it to the door,
and charges a penny for it. The country
youth sees it grow in the fields, in the mill, in
the Bake house. Thus of all things, pertain-
ing to the Life of man.

November 4t. h Yesterday reading Strutt's
1831. Games and Brand's Popular

A?itiquities in the British Mu-
seum. Both good solid serviceable Books. —
Playing-cards commonly said to have been
introduced in the time of Charles VI. (the
mad Dauphin & King) of France ; to appear-
ance erroneously ; for they are mentioned by
some court-officer of his predecessor. The
first law against them is in Spain. Primero
a Spanish name; spades was originally espada,
and had the figure of a sword. Probably
came from the East in the Crusade times ; as
Chess then or earlier did. — Strange old in-
ventions ! who was the author of them ? —
Merelles called also (in Shakespeare for

1 The initial probably stands for Procter.
224

THOMAS CARLYLE.

instance) nine men's morrice is the game I
have played at fifty times in boyhood under
the title of Corsicrown (cross i' the crown) ;
or rather our poor Corsicrown played with
only three men, was but the first portion of
the game. — Vauxhall was once Spring Gar-
dens (in the Spectator's time) ; Ranelagh was
the Earl of R's House; Sadler's Well (in
London ?) was once a sacred Holywell ; then
walled in at the Reformation, and subsequently
discovered by the successor of one Sadler. 1
Could any Well or Rock, or other natural
Product, but relate its history! — Will look
at Brand today, when my work (strenuous no-
work !) is done here. Meanwhile to it thou
Taugenichts ! 2 Gird thyself, stir, struggle, for-
ward ! forward ! Thou art bundled up here,
and tied as in a sack ? On then, as in a sack-
race. " Running not raging." Gott sey mir
gnadig / — 3

12 November. Have been two days as good
as idle! Am far from any
approximation to health; hampered, disturbed,
quite out of sorts. As it were quite stranded ;
no tackle left, no tools but my ten fingers,

1 Peter Cunningham, in his " Handbook of London "
says : " Discovered by one Sadler, in 1683, in the garden
of a house which he had newly opened as a public music-
room."

2 " Do-nothing."

3 " God be gracious to me."

15 225

NOTE BOOK OF

nothing but accidental drift-wood to build
even a raft of. " This is no my ain house."
— Art thou aware still that no man and no
thing but simply thy own self can permanently
keep thee down ? Act thou on that convic-
tion. —

How sad and stern is all Life to me ! Home-
less, Homeless ! Would my Task were done :
I think I should not care to die ; in real earn-
estness should care very little : this earthly
Sun has shown me only roads full of mire and
thorns. Why cannot I be a kind of Artist !
Politics are angry, agitating, for the present
little productive business: what have I to
do with it ? Will any Parliamentary Reform
ever reform me ? —

On the ioth, the beginning of my Idleness,
breakfasted with a Mr. Taylor, 1 and various
parliamentary diplomatic young men in Gros-
venor street. Men of pleasant, easy manners;
a rather pleasant party. Hyde Villiers gave
me a frank, and I wrote a long stupid letter
to my mother 2 ; accompanying John's (from
Turin). — Yesterday, sick enough, and was
visited by Glen: a perfect refining furnace,
chaotically melting and weltering, in which

1 Henry, later Sir Henry, Taylor, " author of Artevelde
and various similar things." In his Reminiscences, ii. 278,
Carlyle records the " early regard, constant esteem, and
readiness to be helpful and friendly" of this "solid,
sound-headed, faithful" man.

2 See Letters, i. 360.

226

THOMAS CARLYLE.

there is yet nothing cast, nor any mould to
cast in. Advised him to establish forthwith
a few " great Possibles" — as poor Davie
Halliday, when mad, had established cer-
tain " great Impossibles," and was wont in
hunting down his theological chimeras, from
proposition out of proposition, to exclaim
at length: "that is one of the great Im-
possibles!" and so terminate the chase. —
Poor Glen's Life, as I told him, has been
a soliloquy ; he has not yet acquired the
gift of communicating, and chiefly there-
fore, not of practically understanding — Was
wird von ihm werden ? Weiss nicht j hoff 1
dock. — Was wird von Dir ? Ach GottJ *

This I begin to see, that Evil and Good
are everywhere like Shadow and Substance :
inseparable (for man) ; yet not hostile, only
opposed. 2 There is considerable signifi-
cance in this fact — perhaps the new moral
principle of our Era. {How?) — It was fa-
miliar to Goethe's mind. —

Everywhere and Everywhen lie the ma-
terials of Art : these waggons and Drivers in

l " What will become of him ? I know not, but have
hope. What will become of thyself? Ah, God ! "

2" Evil . . is precisely the dark, disordered material
out of which man's Freewill has to create an edifice of
order and Good." " Characteristics," (1831). Essays,
iv. 25.

227

NOTE BOOK OF

Holborn are a Dance of Death, — also of Life.
Man and his ways reach always from Heaven
to Hell. But where, O where is the Artist
that can again body this forth ! — Not yet
born ? —

Cholera Morbus arrived at Sunderland. —
If men are united no other way, contagion
and pestilence unite them. — Poor Ricker is
dead of it at Berlin; poor Dickenson dead
(also of infection) at Edinburgh. Death's
thousand doors stand open. Eheu /

But now, to thy Sheet ! Complain not, still
more, ziirrf not. As the saints say: " Pray to
the Lord," rather (in such dialect as thou
canst) ; also handsomely and heartily set thy
shoulder to the wheel ! Heave-oh !

The nobleness of Silence. The highest
melody dwells only in silence (the Sphere me-
lody, the melody of Health) ; the eye cannot
see Shadow, cannot see Light, but only the two
combined. General Law of Being. (Think
farther of this. NovT 17*). —

As it is but a small portion of our Thinking
that we can articulate into Thoughts, so again
it is but a small portion, properly only the
outer surface of our morality that we can shape
into Action, or into express Rules of Action.
Remark farther that it is but the correct cohe-
rent shaping of this outer surface, or the in-

228

THOMAS CARLYLE.

correct incoherent monstrous shaping of it,
and nowise the moral Force which shaped it,
which lies under it, vague, indefinite, unseen,
that constitutes what in common speech we
call a moral conduct or an immoral. Hence
too the necessity of tolerance, of insight, in
judging of men. For the correctness of that
same outer surface may be out of all propor-
tion to the inward depth and quantity; nay
often enough they are in inverse proportion ;
only in some highly favoured individuals can
the great endowment utter itself without ir-
regularity. Thus in great men, with whom
inward and as it were latent morality must
ever be the root and beginning of greatness,
how often do we find a conduct defaced by
many a moral impropriety ; and have to love
them with sorrow! Thus too poor Burns
must record that almost the only noble-
minded men he had ever met with were among
the class named Blackguards. 1

Extremes meet. Perfect Morality were no
more an object of consciousness than perfect
Immorality, as pure Light cannot any more
be seen than pure Darkness. —

l " I have often courted the acquaintance of that part
of mankind, commonly known by the ordinary phrase of
blackguards ... I have yet found among them, in not
a few instances, some of the noblest virtues." Burns,
" Common Place Book," March, 1784. In Cromek's
Reliques of Burns, 1817, p. 323.

229

NOTE BOOK OF

The healthy moral nature loves virtue;
the unhealthy at best makes love to it. 1

Friday Finished th e Characteristics,

23 d December, about a week ago; bad-
dish, with a certain begin-
ning of deeper insight in it.

Reading the Corn Law Rhymes? " Balaam's
Ass has not only stopt,but begins to speak ! "
Witness Detrosier too. — 3

Byron we call " a Dandy of Sorrows, and
acquainted with grief." That is a brief defi-
nition of him.

13t h January London still. — Have spent
1832. nearly three weeks in reading

Croker's BoswelFs Johnson;
on which I have now (and had) some pur-
pose of writing an Essay. I mean to try
whether I cannot get into a more currente
calamo style of writing; for magazines and
the like, it were far more suitable : whether
also for me and my objects ? The Charac-

1 The thought in this and the preceding entry is worked
out in the " Characteristics."

2 By Ebenezer Elliott. These poems furnished the
text of the article with the same title.

3 Detrosier was a " Manchester Lecturer to the Work-
ing Classes," brought by John Mill to Carlyle. " The
Saint Simonians, Manchester, Detrosier, etc., were stir-
ring and conspicuous objects in that epoch, but have
now fallen all dark and silent again." T. C. 1866.
Life, ii. 224, n.

230

THOMAS CARLYLE.

teristics was written with almost intolerable
difficulty, and is ill written, I fear no one will
understand it. We shall see in a week or
two, for it is coming out. —

Have made a kind of engagement with
Lardner of the Cabinet Cyclopedia to furnish
him a Zur Geschichte 1 of German Literature;
incorporating my Papers in the Foreign Re-
view &c, 170 pages of original writing: do
not yet above three-fourths see my way thro'
it ; am to have it ready next November. No
list of "Books wanted" yet made out; this
should be my first task. The work will serve
me perhaps pretty tolerably thro' the sum-
mer ; I shall get done with German Litera-
ture; a little money too (^300) for my two
volumes, and pay off that ^60^ my only
debt which sometimes grieves me a little. — I
have been sick of a kind of cold; and am
still in rather uncomfortable health ; but do
not mind it very much.

Plenty of Magazine Editors applying to
me; indeed sometimes pestering me. Do
not like to break with any; yet must not
close with any. Strange state of Literature,
periodical and other ! A man must just lay
out his manufacture in one of those Old-

1 A book ' ' on the history " of German Literature. See
Letters, i. 389.

2 Money lent by Jeffrey to Carlyle's brother John.
See Letters, i. 314. It was paid in August, 1832. See
Id., ii. 64.

231

NOTE BOOK OF

Clothes shops, and see whether any one will
buy it. The Editor has little to do with the
matter, except as Commercial Broker; he
sells it and pays you for it. — Lytton Bulwer *
has not yet come into sight of me : is there
aught more in him than a Dandiacal Philoso-
phist? Fear, not. — Tait the Bookseller
about beginning a new Magazine, on the
Radical side of things : my feeling is that the
chances are greatly against him ; for my own
share I have nothing to do with him or it as
yet, my hands full otherwise. Then of the
infatuated Fraser, with his Dog's-meat Cart
of a magazine, what? His pay is certain,
and he means honestly ; but is a goose. It
was he that sent me Croker's Boswell : am I
bound to offer him the (future) Article? —
Or were this thy Rule in such cases : " Write
thy best and the Truth; then publish it
where thou canst best " ? An indubitable
rule ; but is it rule enough ? —

Last Friday, saw my name in large letters
at the Athenaeum Office in Catherine street
Strand; hurried on with downcast eyes, as
if I had seen myself in the Pillory. Dilke
(to whom I had entrusted Dreck to read it,
and see if he could help me with it) asked
me for a scrap of writing with my name : I
could not quite clearly see my way thro' the
business (for he had twice or thrice been civil

l Then editor of the New Monthly Magazine.
232

THOMAS CARLYLE.

to me, and I did reckon his Athenaeum to be
the bad best of literary Newspaper syllabubs,
and tho* I might harmlessly say so much) ;
gave him Fausfs Curse, which hung printed
there. Incline now to believe that I did
wrong; at least imprudently. Why yield
even half a hair's-breadth to Puffing ? Abhor
it, utterly divorce it, and kick it to the Devil !
— This little adventure, however, hat nichts
zu bedeuten ; l so trouble not thyself with it.

On Tuesday last (10 th Jan y ) wrote to John
in Rome ; 2 from whom I am getting impatient
for a Letter.

Have an Article in prospect (still within
myself) on the Radical plebeian who writes
Cornlaw Rhymes. Wish to do the poor soul
a justice and a kindness.

Singular how little wisdom or light of any
kind I have met with in London. Do not
find a single creature that has communicated
an idea to me ; at best one or two that can
understand an idea. Yet the sight of Lon-
don works on me strongly ; I have not per-
haps lost my journey hither. 3

Dreck unpublished, to all appearance un-
punishable. One Tilt of Fleet-street (a triv-
iality) " glanced over it," then " regretted"

1 " Is really insignificant."

2 See Letters, i. 382. 3 See Id., i. 391.

233

NOTE BOOK OF

&c. Dilke had no light to throw on the
business, and I think will have none : the
MS at this moment in the hands of Charles
Buller. Glen, Mill and he have all read it ;
apparently, not without result : it was intended
for such, therefore seems not wholly verfehlt. 1
As for the publication of it, I grow indifferent
about that matter ; indeed the whole concern
is becoming unimportant to me. What is
true today will be true tomorrow and next
day. — We can wait, — forever. 2

Hay ward, of the Temple, 3 a small but ac-
tive and vivacious ' man of the time,' by a
strange impetus, takes to me ; the first time,
they say, he ever did such a thing, being one
that lives in a chiaro-scuro element of which
goodhumoured contempt is the basis. I met
him at Mr Gray's, where also was one Dr.
Bach, a German zealously kind to me : Hay-
ward started this scheme of the Germ. Lit.
Hist., and made it all ready for me. 4 Singu-
lar enough. (Lardner ein Langohriger)? Dined

1 " A failure." 2 See Letters, i. 391.

3 Mr. Abraham Hayward, translator of the first part
of Faust, editor of Autobiography », Letters, etc. of Mrs. Pi-
ozzi, 1861, writer of a multitude of gossiping papers. He
died in 1884.

4 Cf. Letters, i. 389.

5-Dr. Dionysius Lardner, " a long-eared" man of sci-
ence, of some transient repute, editor of the Cabinet Cy-
clopaedia, in which this History was to appear. He after-
ward became sadly notorious. He died in 1859.

234

THOMAS CARLYLE.

in his rooms (once Dunning's 1 !) with a set of
Oxonian Templars : stupid (in part), limited
(wholly), conceited, obscene. A dirty even-
ing; I at last sunk utterly silent. Bernays
(a German Professor — in the "King's Col-
lege " here) understood what I was saying :
but could say little, tho' in many words. Am
to go thither today, and meet a certain Sir
Alexander Johnston : small things expected
of him. He has been in China, and knew
Schiller.— 2

I have never again seen Bowring or Fon-
blanque. Mean to see at least the latter.
None of the great personages of Letters have
come in my way here ; and except as sights,
they are of little moment to me. Jeffrey
says he "praised me to Rogers," who, &c.
&c : it sometimes rather surprises me that his
Lordship does not think it would be kind to
show me the faces of those people : some-
thing discourages or hinders him ; what it is
I know not, and indeed care not. — The Aus-
tins, at least the {la) Austin I like j 3 eine

1 " The great lawyer," as Johnson called him in aletter
to Boswell, July 22, 1777 ; afterward the first Lord Ash-
burton.

2 Sir Alexander Johnston had as a young man, near the
beginning of the century, studied at Gottingen, and
probably then saw Schiller. A large part of his life was
passed in Ceylon, where in the organization and admin-
istration of the government he did excellent service.

3 The John Austins were living at Hampstead. " Mrs.
Austin is described by Carlyle, after first seeing her, as

235

NOTE BOOK OF

verstandige, herzhafte Frau. 1 Empson a di-
luted, goodnatured, languid Anemfifindler. 2
The strongest young man, one Macaulay
(now in Parliament, as I from the first pre-
dicted), an emphatic, hottish, really forcible
person; but unhappily without divine idea?
Perhaps he could play the part of a Canning;
were the scene now the same, which however
it is not. Rogers (an elegant, politely malig-
nant old lady, I think 4 ) is in Town (and prob-
ably I might see him) : Moore is I know not
where, — a lascivious triviality, of great name.
Bentham is said to have become a driveller,
and garrulous old man : perhaps I will try for a
look of him ; he is or was a forcible product.
— I have much to see, and many things to

' the most enthusiastic of German Mystics I have ever met
with : an exceedingly vivid person, not without insight,
but enthusiastic, as it were astonished, rapt to ecstasy
with the German apocalypse, and as she says herself
verdeutscht " (Germanised). Letters, i. 320. Author of
Characteristics of Goethe, 3 vols., 1833. The friendly ac-
quaintance begun at this time continued through later
years.

1 "An intelligent, resolute woman."

2 " Adopter of the sentiments of another."

3 Macaulay had distinguished himself greatly in the
debate in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill.
One of his speeches was said by Jeffrey to put him
' ' clearly at the head of the great speakers, if not the de-
baters of the House." Cockburn, Life of Lord Jeffrey, i.

324-

4 " Rogers was a kindly old man, excepting when he
was bilious." Tennyson reported by Mr. Locker-
Lampson. Life of 'Tennyson, ii. 72.

236

THOMAS CARLYLE.

wind up in London, before we leave it — in
March.

I went one morning searching for John-
son's places of abode. Found, with difficulty,
the house in Gough (Goff ) Square where the
Dictionary was composed : * the landlord,
whom Glen and I incidentally inquired of,
was just scraping his feet at the door; invited
us to walk in; showed us the garret rooms
&c. (of which he seemed to have the obscu-
rest traditions ; taking Johnson for a school-
master!); interested us much; but at length
(dog of a fellow !) began to hint that he had
all these rooms to let as lodgings ! — I saw
also Savage's Birthplace (Foxcourt, Brook st.
& Gray's Inn Lane) one of the horridest holes
in London. — Must speak with old Smith of
the Museum, on the subject. —

London is of all the places I ever walked
and inquired in, that where you oftenest have
the answer : " Don't know." A quite anarchic
place in all respects. The men that could
tell you, exist, but where ? You cannot even
find a Library to borrow Books from. 2 Were

1 Cf. article on Johnson. Essays, iv. 112.

2 After Carlyle settled in London, and especially when
he was at work on Cromwell, this want of a lending li-
brary in London was pressed home upon him, and he
set earnestly at work to supply the need. He interested
people of influence in the matter, and mainly through
his efforts the invaluable London Library was estab-

237

NOTE BOOK OF

it not for the Museum one where you have
a certain help, the obstruction were total.

Biography is the only History : * Political
History, as now written and hitherto, with its
Kings and changes of Taxgatherers, is little
(very little) more than a mockery of our
want. This I see more and more.

The world grows to* me evermore as a Magic
Picture, a true Supernatural Revelation ; infi-
nitely stern, but also infinitely grand. Shall I
ever succeed in copying a little therefrom.

" What I gave I have ; what I spent I had,
what I left I lost." Epitaph at Doncaster (?)
from Johnson's Letters. 2 The first, and only

lished. He wrote to Emerson, 8 Feb., 1839, " We have
no Library here, from which we can borrow books home ;
and are only in these weeks striving to get one : think
of that!" In the course of the year the Library was
opened. Carlyle was for many years its President. See
Life, iii. 152, 188.

1 Cf. ' Biography,' Essays, iv. 53.

2 Carlyle cites this epitaph in his fine essay on John-
son. The epitaph varying slightly in form is found on
several tombs. Gibbon in his History cites from Cleave-
land's Genealogical History of the Family of Courtenay,
1735. P- 142, the epitaph of Edward, the blind Earl
of Devon of the 15th century, which is in the words
given by Carlyle, except for having ! we ' in the place of
' I.' The epitaph at Doncaster which Johnson cited was
on the tomb of one Robyn of Doncaster and ran :

"That I spent, that I had ;
That I gave, that I have ;
That I left, that I lost."

238

THOMAS CARLYLE.

true, clause of it was long ago a perception
of my own.

Dies irae, dies ilia : where shall I find that
old chant? Must investigate. (Now en-
ough for one morning ! ) —

Dies irae, dies ilia
Solvet saeclum in favilla :
Teste David cum Sybilla.

2.
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando Judex est venturus,
Cuncta stricte discussurus !

The tomb perished in the fire that destroyed the church
in 1853. See Letters of Johnson, edited by G. Birkbeck
Hill, 1892, i. 224, n. In the church of St. Peter at Veru-
lam (St. Alban's), Bedfordshire, there is, or was at the
beginning of the century, a brass plate engraved with a
similar epitaph in Latin, with an English translation,
the two in concentric circles, the outer circle being
formed of the English words, the inner of the Latin.
The English, modernized, ran thus :

Lo all that ere I spent, that sometime had I ;
All that I gave in good intent, that now have I ;
That I neither gave nor lent, that now abie I ;
That I kepte till I went, that lost I.
The Latin was as follows :

Quod expendi habui,
Quod donavi habeo,
Quod negavi punior,
Quod servavi perdidi.
See Beauties of 'England and Wales, 1808, vii. ioo, where
is an engraving of this curious plate.

239

NOTE BOOK OF

3-

Tuba, mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionum,
Coget omnes ante thronum.

4-
Mors stupebit et natura,
Cum resurget creatura,
Judicanti responsura.

5-
Liber scriptus proferetur,
In quo totum continetur,
Unde mundus judicetur.

6.
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
Quidquid latet, apparebit :
Nil inultum remanebit.

7.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
Quern patronum rogaturus,
Cum vix Justus sit securus?

8.
Rex tremendae majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salva me, fons pietatis.

9-
Recordare Jesu pie,
Quod sum causa tuas viae ;
Ne me perdas ilia die.

240

THOMAS CARLYLE,

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus ;
Redemisti crucem passus :
Tantus labor non sit cassus.

Juste Judex ultionis,
Donum fac remissionis,
Ante diem rationis.

12.
Ingemisco tanquam reus,
Culpa rubet vultus meus,
Supplicanti parce, Deus.

13-
Qui Mariam absolvisti,
Et latronem exaudisti,
Mihi quoque spem dedisti.

14.

Preces meae non sunt dignae
Sed Tu bonus fac benigne
Ne perenni cremer igne.

15.
Inter oves locum praesta,
Et ab haedis me sequestra,
Statuens in parte dextra.

16.

Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis,
Voca me cum benedictis.

16 241

NOTE BOOK OF

17-
Oro supplex et acclinis,
Cor contritum quasi cinis :
Gere curam mei finis.

18.
Lachrymosa dies ilia
Qua resurget ex favilla.
Judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus.

Pie Jesu Domine dona eis requiem. — Amen.

[Copied from the " Mass for the Dead on
the Day of decease or burial " in the Romish
Missal (London, 1806 p. 512) this 14 th Jan?:
long sought for; found by Jane, last night ac-
cidentally.]

— Did not see the Sir A. J. yesterday; and
cared less than nothing. — Invited to see Hogg
(the Ettrick Shepherd) for Friday next.

Books to be looked after.

Grose's Olio. — The Foundling Hospital
of Wit.

Arnold on Insanity. Carleton's Memoirs
(of the Duke of Ormond ? — 17th century.
Republished 1808).

Psalmanazar's Memoirs. Wool's Life of
War ton.

Moore's Life of Smollett (worth anything?)
242

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Hardy's Life of Charlemont. Pennant's
London.

Cradock's Memoirs (when? who?)

Spence's Anecdotes. Davies's Life of Gar-
rick.

Life of Goldsmith (by Sir Joseph Mawbey ?)

Maty's Life of Chesterfield. Leland's, Itin-
erary.

Seward's Anecdotes of Eminent Persons.

Nichols's Anecdotes. — Miss Hawkins's
Memoirs.

These works are noted down from Croker's
edition of Boswell's Johnson; which work I
have just been earnestly reading; and now
propose writing some kind of Essay upon. —
January 18*, 1832. —

Parson Hackman (Narrative of) in " Love
& Madness ; " a foolish, partially indecent,
altogether frothy Book. He killed M's 1 mother
(Lord Sandwich's mistress, a Miss Ray) at the
door of the Theatre, and was executed at Ty-
burn in 1779 ( ms Trial was 16* April). 2 — What
stuff men are made of! It is very true that a
madman lies within every sane man ; is the ma-
terial whereof the sane man fashions himself.

Hazlitt's Liber Amoris read for the first

1 Basil Montagu, born 1770, died 1851, husband of the
'Noble Lady' (see ante, p. 195), and not without other
claims to remembrance.

2 Cf. Reminiscences, ii. 126 ; and see Boswell's Johnson,
edited by Dr. Birkbeck Hill, iii. 383.

243

NOTE BOOK OF

time : quite an enchantment, like one of those
in the Midsummer Nighfs Dream; a most
hairy-faced, long-eared Bottom the weaver !
No ' Confession ' perhaps ever exhibited a
a man in more despicably pitiable, ludicrously
abominable light, since confessions first came
into fashion.

II volto sciolto, i pensieri stretti. ( This is
Wotton's word.) 1

Campbell's Hermippus Redivivus (gives ac-
count of the Hermetic Philosophy). — Lives
of the Admirals by the same. This was he
who " always pulled his hat off when passing
a church." 2

Came upon Shepherd, the Unitarian Par-
son of Liverpool, yesterday for the first time,
at Mrs. Austin's. A very large purply flabby

1 " At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto
Scipioni, an old Roman Courtier in dangerous times
. . . and at my departure toward Rome ... I had
won confidence enough to beg his advice how I might
carry myself securely there, without offence of others, or
of mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo mio (sayes he) /
Pensieri stretti, e il viso sciolto: That is, Your thoughts
close, and your countenance loose, will go safely over the

whole World." Letter to Master Reliquice Wot-

tonuzna, 1651, p. 434. The letter was to Milton; see Notes
and Queries, July, 1852, p. 5.

2 See Bos well's Johnson (ed. Hill), ii. 418. Dr. Camp-
bell was but the translator of the Hermippus Redivivu,
the author was Dr. J. H. Cohausen of Coblentz, See
Id., iii. 427, note, for an account of the book.

244

THOMAS CARLYLE.

man ; massive head with long thin grey hair;
eyes both squinting, both overlapped at the
corners by a little roof of brow; giving him
(with his ill-shut mouth) a kind of lazy, eat-
ing, goodhumoured aspect. For the rest, a
Unitarian Radical ; clear, steadfast, but every
way limited. . . : He said Jeffrey did not
strike him as " a very taking man." Lanca-
shire accent, or some provincial one. — Have
long known the Unitarians intus et in cute ;
and never got any good of them ; or any ill.

Was the building of St. Paul's or the writ-
ing of Paradise Lost more necessary to Eng-
land ? The one cost us ;£i 50,000, the other
^15. — Literature cannot be rewarded in
money : it is priceless. — Have an Essay " on
Authors " in my eye.

Franklin, I find twice or thrice in Boswell,
defines man as "a Tool-making Animal."
Teufelsdreck therefore has so far been antici-
pated. 1 Vivant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt !

Saturday 21?t Yesterday sat scribbling
January. some stuff, close on the bor-

ders of nonsense, about Bi-
ography, as a kind of introduction to " John-

1 " ' But on the whole,' continues our eloquent Pro-
fessor, ' Man is a Tool-using Animal.' " Sartor, Book i.
ch. v. See Boswell's Johnson (ed. Hill), iii. 245 for the
citation of Franklin's definition.

245

NOTE BOOK OF

son." 1 How is it to be ? I see not well ;
know only that it should be light, and written
(by way of experiment) currente calamo. I
am sickly, not dispirited, yet sad. As is my
wont : when did I laugh last ? Alas, ' light
laughter, like heavy money, has altogether
fled from us.' The reason is we have no com-
munion j company enough, but no fellow-
ship. Time brings roses. Meanwhile, the
grand perennial Communion of Saints is
ever open to us : enter, and worthily com-
port thyself there !

Nothing in this world is to me more mourn-
ful, distressing and in the end intolerable,
than mirth not based on Earnestness (for it is
false mirth) ; than wit, pretending to be wit,
and yet not based on wisdom. Two objects
would reduce me to gravity had I the spirits
of a Merry Andrew : a Death's Head and a
modern London Wit. The besom of destruc-
tion should be swept over these people; or
else perpetual silence (except when they
needed victuals or the like) imposed on
them.

In the afternoon, Jeffrey, as he is often
wont, called in on us : very lively, quick and
— light. Chatted about " cholera ; " a sub-
ject far more interesting to him than it is to
us. Walked with him to Regent street; in

1 It was printed as an independent paper in Fraser's
Magazine.

246

THOMAS CARLYLE.

hurried assiduous talk. Shiel (the Irish ora-
tor) had been once, he said, convicted of a lie :
it was some story he had told, of Police tor-
tures or such like, in the Catholic Associa-
tion; having been that very day convinced
that it was not true. O'Connell I called a
real specimen of the almost obsolete species
Demagogue. (Why should it be obsolete, this
being the very scene for it ? Chiefly because
we are all Dilettantes, and have no heart of
Faith, even for the coarsest of beliefs.) His
" cunning " the sign, as cunning ever is, of a
weak intellect, as of a weak character. — Very
few Irish Appeals come to the House of
Lords; a far greater proportion of Scotch.
Why? The Irish Courts are identical with
the English; their decisions little apt to be
reversed : in any Scotch case, from the Chan-
cellor's ignorance, there is a chance (like the
throwing of dice) that he may decide either
way. Eldon often decided palpably wrong.
Nevertheless not above i case in 70, even of
those decided in the Scotch Inner House, is
appealed from. Of those that stop in the
Outer House, " perhaps not one in 500." All
causes that go from the Outer to the Inner
House go thither in the shape of appeal.
Scotch law, Jeffrey agrees, is much better
than English. He tells, what so few here can
do, an intelligible tale about what he is work-
ing in. Seemed to admit with me that the

247

NOTE BOOK OF

whole system of English Law has provoked
not unjustly a fixed spirit of revolt in the
minds of all men, and that it must be totally
new-made. ' In my younger days, it was
said if you had a contention about ^30, let
it go either way, do not enter Court at all :
now the ^30 has become ^80, and the ad-
vice is repeated with that variation. Very
bad.' — I have an immense appetite for
statistics; but can get no proviant of that
kind.

At my return home, whom should I find
standing but Gustave d'Eichthal the Saint-
Simonian ! A little, tight, cleanly pure lov-
able Geschopfchen .- 1 a pure martyr and apos-
tle, as it seems to me ; almost the only one
(not ' belonging to the Past ') whom I have
met with in my pilgrimage. Mill goes so far
as to think there might and should be mar-
tyrs : this is one. He spoke French and
English. His ideas narrow, and sore dis-
torted ; but his mind open, his heart noble.
I have pleasure in the prospect of meeting
him again. —

Soon after, Arthur Buller called with a
"mein bester Freund!" A goodish youth;
affectionate, at least attached : not so hand-
some as I had expected, tho' more so than
enough. He walked with me to Fraser's
Dinner in Regent street; or rather to the

1 ' Little creature.'
248

THOMAS CARLYLE.

door of Fraser's house, & there took leave
with stipulation of speedy re-meeting. 1

Enter thro' Fraser's Bookshop into a back-
room, where sit Allan Cunningham, W. Fra-
ser 2 (the only two known to me personally),
James Hogg (in the easy-chair of honour),
Gait, and one or two nameless persons ; pa-
tiently waiting for dinner. Locjdiart (whom
I did not know) requested to be introduced
to me. A precise brief active person, of con-
siderable faculty, which however had shaped
itself gigmanically only. Fond of quizzing,
yet not very maliciously. Has a broad black
brow indicating force and penetration, but a
lower half of face dwindling into the char-
acter at best of distinctness, almost of trivial-
ity. Rather liked the man, and shall like to
meet him again. 3 — Gait looks old, is deafish ;
has the air of a sedate Greenock Burgher;

1 In a letter to his mother, 22 Jan., Carlyle said, " The
Bullers are here, both parents and sons all in the friend-
liest relation to me . . . The two boys are promising
fellows and may one day be heard of in the world"
(as, indeed, they were). Letters, ii. 10.

2 James Fraser was the proprietor of the Bookshop,
and publisher of Fraser s Magazine. William Fraser
was for some time editor of the Foreign Review, to which
Carlyle was the most important contributor.

3 In 1839 Carlyle's acquaintance with Lockhart was
renewed, and he wrote to his brother, ' Had a long
interview with the man [Lockhart] yesterday, found him
a person of sense, good breeding, even kindness.'
Life, iii. 163. After this their relations continued on
terms of mutual respect and friendliness.

249

NOTE BOOK OF

mouth indicating sly humour, and self-satis-
faction; the eyes old and without lashes,
gave me a sort of wae interest for him. He
wears spectacles, and is hard of hearing : a
very large man; and eats and drinks with a
certain west-country gusto and research.
Said little; but that little peaceable, clear
and gutmuthig. 1 Wish to see him also again. 2
— Hogg 3 is a little, red-skinned, stiff, sack of
a body, with quite the common air of an Et-
trick shepherd ; except that he has a highish
tho' sloping brow (among his yellow-grizzled
hair), and two clear little beads of blue or
grey eyes, that sparkle if not with thought
yet with animation. Behaves himself quite
easily and well. Speaks Scotch, and mostly
narrative absurdity (or even obscenity) there-
with. Appears in the mingled character of
Zany and raree-show : all bent on bantering
him, especially Lockhart; Hogg walking
thro' it, as if unconscious, or almost flattered.
His vanity seems to be immense, but also his

1 ' Good-natured.'

2 John Gait, 1779-1839, a busy and prolific man of
letters, whose ' Annals of the Parish ' are still worth
reading as a true picture of rustic Scotch life ; liked
and praised by Scott.

3 The ' Ettrick Shepherd,' eternized not so much by
his own works, as by Scott's goodness to him, and
Wordsworth's verses upon his death. "He was un-
doubtedly," wrote Wordsworth, in the note prefixed to
his 'Extempore Effusion,' "a man of original genius,
but of coarse manners and low and offensive opinions."

250

THOMAS CARLYLE.

goodnature: I felt interest for the poor
' Herd Body ' ; wondered to see him blown
hither from his sheepfolds, and how, quite
friendless as he was, he went along cheerful,
mirthful and musical. I do not well under-
stand the man : his significance is perhaps
considerable. His poetic talent is authentic,
yet his intellect seems of the weakest, his
morality also limits itself to the precept : Be
not angry. Is the charm of this poor man
chiefly to be found herein, That he is a real
product of Nature, and able to speak natur-
ally — which not one in the thousand is?
An ' unconscious talent/ tho' of the small-
est 5 emphatically naive. Once or twice in
singing (for he sung of his own) there was an
emphasis in poor Hogg's look, expressive of
feeling, almost of enthusiasm. The man is a
very curious specimen : Alas he is a Man ;
yet how few will so much as treat him like a
specimen, and not like a mere wooden Punch
or Judy 1 / — For the rest our talk was utterly
despicable. Stupidity, insipidity, even not a
little obscenity (in which all save Gait, Fra-
ser and myself seemed to join) was the only
outcome of the night. 2 Literary men / They
are not worthy to be valets of such. Was a

1 Cf. Letters, ii. 9.

2 ' The conversation was about the basest I ever as-
sisted in," wrote Carlyle to his brother John, 18 Febr.
Life, ii. 263.

251

NOTE BOOK OF

thing. said that did not even solicit in mercy
to be forgotten ? Not so much as the at-
tempt or wish to speak profitably. Trivi-
alitas trivialitatum ; omnia trivia Mas / — I
went to see, and I saw ; and have now said,
and mean to be silent, or try if I can speak
elsewhere. — Enough for once.

#1

[What follows was written under another
binding; and is now slit out, and sewed in
here, another better Note book having come
to hand. 15* May.] 2

March (about 8*) 1832 — Finished a has-
tened Paper on Johnson; which now (i5 l . h )
lies at Press. Perhaps not wholly without

1 On the 22 January Carlyle's Father died, and the re-
maining pages of the original Note Book (pp. 52-76), and
an addition sewed into it of forty-two pages, are occupied
with Carlyle's Reminiscences of his Father. They be-
gin : " On Tuesday, January the 24th 1832, I received
tidings that my dear and worthy Father had departed
out of this world." And a few pages further on Carlyle
writes : ' I purpose now, while the impression is more
pure and clear within me, to mark down the main things
I can recollect of my Father.' This record of his Fa-
ther's life, one of the most impressive biographical
sketches in the language, is printed in Reminiscences, i.
1-52. The date at its close is ' Sunday night, 29th Janu-
ary 1832.' •

2 " What follows " occupies an addition to the Note-
book, of which the pages are numbered 1 19-152.

252

THOMAS CARLYLE.

worth : we shall see. — [Have been interrupted,
and no time is left at present.] —

British Museum (Saturday, St Patrick's day
for I saw Irishmen with shillelahs!) Came
hither to look after Diderot, whereof here is
what lies in the Biog. Universelle :

He translated Stanyan's History of Greece
(1743). Diet. deMedecine (1746). Essaisurle
Merite et laVertu (1745) half-translated out of
Shaftesbury — Pensees Philosophiques (1746)
made much noise — Lettre sur les aveugles
for the use of those that see (1749) : sent to
Vincennes in consequence. Encycloped.
(1751) the two first vol. — and excited atten-
tion — 1752 it was suspended (de par le roi)
for 18 months. Stopt again in 1759 when
d'Alemb. retired : Dider. exerted himself
(honour of the nation, advantage to trade,
&c.) ; the Direct, de la librairie (who ? what ? )
and due de Choiseul granted a protection (7
vol. already out); and the rest of the work' was
published with the entirest freedom, each striv-
ing who should emit the most " philosophical
idea" : hastily got up too : Diderot was alone
in it ; took such workmen as he could get. —

In the fidelite conjugale ne voit qu'un
entetement et un supplice. Supplem. to the
voyage of Bougainville. — Obscene novels
(vols. 10, 11, 12 of Naigeon 1 ) very obscene it

l Naigeon was the editor of the Works of Diderot, in

253

NOTE BOOK OF

is said. — Eleutheromanes (Liberty-mad), these
two lines (qu'on lui a tant reproch£)

Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du pretre,
A defaut d'un cordon, pour etrangler les rois. 1

— Vol. 4. contains his pieces de theatre.

Bishop Douglas 2 (Dr Johnson's) came from
Pittenweem in Fife ! The son of a ' mer-
chant ' [fiegociant] there : wrote against Hume
and on Politics.

Home? (This appears to be the 17 th of
March). Have just finished with Lardner
about the Lit. Hist, of Germany; and am
off with him, eitimal und immertnehr.^ 'Tis
as well, perhaps better. A History will grow

15 volumes, published in 1798, and reprinted often after-
wards. He inserted in the text passages of an atheistic
character, without indication that they were his own, and
not Diderot's. See Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi
(1851), Tome iii. p. 227.

1 Carlyle cites and comments on these verses "sur-
passing all yet uttered or utterable in the Tyrtaean way ' '
in his article on Diderot. Essays, v. 43.

2 Dr. John Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, 1721-1807 ;
a member of the Literary Club, noted for his exposure
of Lauder's forgeries, commemorated by Goldsmith in
Retaliation, —

" Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax,
The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks."

3 'Home,' that is, the lodgings in Ampton Street; the
last entry having been made at the British Museum.

4 * Once and forever.'

254

THOMAS CARLYLE.

among my hands (by Review Articles) into
a fitter shape; and may, one day, be pub-
lished on its own foundation, — if the world
require it; if not, not. Meanwhile, I have
other work to seek for myself: The Sheffield
Radical, 1 Diderot, Authors, Lessing, Thoma-
sius, Fichte ; plenty of them !

Settled yesterday, with Fraser, about the
dividing of Johnson? A foolish vehicle his
scavenger-cart of a Magazine is : but what
then ? We must speak ; if not by one organ,
then by another. — Make not so much of
those pitiful lucubrations of thine : cast them
forth ; wirfsie schweigend in die ewige Zeit / 3
They are but rubbish, — as all Time-things
are : do thy best with them ; then let the
world do its.

Bookselling (as I told Lardner, much to
his surprise) is in the state of ' delirium be-
fore death ': the more needful is it that thou
walk wisely thro' the middle of it.

We are both (Weibchen and I) considera-
bly hurt in health, and longing to be home ;
which we expect soon. The climate of this

1 Ebenezer Elliott.

2 By the separation of the introductory pages on Bi-
ography in general, to form an independent article.

3 " Cast them silently away for ever."

255

NOTE BOOK OF

place is among the most detestable on Earth :
otherwise, the place has been wholly agree-
able to us.

Yesternight I saw Sir Nicholas Harris Nic-
olas Knight of the Guelphic Order, Antiqua-
rian and what not j a good-natured, rattling,
small rather than thick-headed mortal : he said
(coming home with me thro' Chancery Lane),
" I believe I have ruined (or done more to
ruin) more Booksellers than any man living:
no Book of mine ever paid its expenses."

The evening before (at W. Fraser's), I had
seen this Knight, and another of the same, 1
Sir David Brewster! B. is still full of pro-
jects and purveyor-activity : for the rest, has
become a Whig and Reformer, and speaks
about this Chancellor 2 exactly as about the
Chancellor; whose sublime mind (he took
pains to say) had included even me in its
contemplations. A tough, vivacious man!
Not without kindness, at least great sociality,
of disposition ; and for his practical opinions :

O wonder, O wonder ! enter and see :

A weathercock's head where his tail sh d be.

Leigh Hunt and I have come into contact
by occasion of the Characteristics : he sought
me out, and has been twice here; I once with

1 ' Another of the same ' is a phrase from the Scotch
version of the Psalms, in frequent use in Scotland. A. C.

2 Lord Brougham.

256

THOMAS CARLYLE.

him. A pleasant, innocent, ingenious man ;
filled with Epicurean Philosophy, and steeped
in it to the very heart. He has suffered more
than most men; is even now bankrupt (in
purse and repute), sick, and enslaved to daily-
toil : yet will nothing persuade him that Man
is born for another object here than to be
happy. Honour to tenacity of conviction !
Credo quia impossibile. — A man copious and
cheerfully sparkling in conversation ; of grave
aspect, never laughs, hardly smiles; black
hair shaded to each side ; hazel eyes, with a
certain lifting up of the eyebrows that has no
archness in it, rather sentient, well- satisfied
self-consciousness. He is a real lover of
Nature, and even singer thereof; and, for the
rest, belongs to London in the opening of the
igth century. — x

The ' Cockney School ' will one day be
historically significant ; in a small way. Its
chief character is even this Epicurism ; half-
vision it had, but then only half. . . . Not
Stare super antiquas vias, thencefrom to look
out for new ways, and walk thereon ; but sim-
ply to leap the hedges, and so sink in quag-
mires: this has been their method. They
knew the wrong, not the right : worst of all,
they did not care properly to know it, but

1 The acquaintance with Hunt was renewed when
Carlyle settled in London in 1834. See Reminiscences, i.
104, 174 ; Letters, ii. 150, 701, et al.

17 257

NOTE BOOK OF

sought only self. We shall see them all bet-
ter one day.

Wrote to John at Rome (a double Letter,
which would go off yesterday). —

Schlegel is here : I left my card ; and hope
not, and care not, to see the old fool. His
usual wig is blond; his face he paints ! Ach !
Finally, he is a literary Gigman. They are to
give him a dinner at the " Literary Union "
to-day: who? One Hay ward (the "cleverest
of the second-rate men," who has been much
here), and Dionysius Lardner! — The day of
small things. —

" Dr. Maginn "was at Fraser's with the two
Sirs. 1 A rattling Irishman, full of quizzicality
and drollery, without ill-nature, without earn-
estness, certainty of conviction or purpose in
regard to any subject, except this one : Punch
is Punch. A shortish thickset man (looks up-
wards of forty) with a fine (almost genial) gray
eye ; wears a wig. Is the proper Palinurus
and originator of Fraser's Magazine; wherein,
and in the Standard Newspaper, he finds his
chief threshing-floor at present. I understand
he " works mostly for the dead horse."

1 William Maginn (1794 — 1842) was one of the most
prolific and versatile magazine-writers of his time ; he
had cleverness, wit, and a store of miscellaneous learn-
ing. But he wrote little or nothing of permanent value.

258

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Fraser's Magazine took being first in the
head of William Fraser ; has, or had no Editor,
Aim, or Principle: a chaotic, fermenting, dung-
hill heap of compost (as all these things are) ;
of which I have at last succeeded in forming
to myself some comprehensible notion. Its
circulation only is still obscure to me; the
methods of circulating it. One day I will jot
down what I know: such things will rather
soon, I think, be strange. The Bookseller is
no knave : that is perhaps the only merit of
the whole.

What have I to do now, before quitting
London ? Let me consider well, and have a
plan of it, for next week, and attain something.
— For once, enough ! 1

[Times.] London, Monday, April 2, 1832.

" These papers announce a death which may
almost be considered an event in politics as
well as in literature, — the celebrated Goethe
died at Weimar on the 2 2d ult. He expired,
without any apparent suffering, in his arm-
chair, having a few minutes previously called
for paper for the purpose of writing, and ex-
pressed his delight at the arrival of spring.
He had, however, for the last two years en-

l The Carlyles left London on the 25th March, and
after a few days in Liverpool and Dumfries returned to
Craigenputtock in the middle of April.

259

NOTE BOOK OF

joyed little of his usual health, and had fallen
off greatly in personal appearance. We believe
that he had passed his 82d year. All Europe
knows the literary era of Germany which com-
menced with this distinguished man, which
ends with him, and which may be considered
as identified with his personal history."

This came to me at Dumfries, on my first
return thither. I had written to Weimar,
asking for a Letter to welcome me home j and
this was it. My Letter 1 would never reach its
address ; the great and good Friend was no
longer there ; had departed some seven days
before. — Craigenputtock, 19th April, 1832.

Tribula was a kind of threshing-machine ;
a chest roughened with wood-bars, or iron or
flint notches on the bottom, and so trailed
by cattle back and forward over the ears of
corn till the grain was hustled out of them.
The driver sat on it; and (as among the
modern Turks) might have a ladle wherein
to catch the dung /

Tribulatio is from this word; and so origin-
ally signifies something like what we Scotch
mean by a Heckelling ( Hatch elling) : use has
made it honourable.

The Fuller's was a great craft among the

1 In regard to this letter see Correspondence of Goethe
and Carlyle, p. 298, n.

260

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Romans, for they had no shirts (?), and on
gala-days dressed all in white woolen. The
smell of the Fullones was not the pleasantest :
they were sent to work, therefore, in fields,
remote from the nostrils of men. Their use
of a certain Liquor was great : they had pots
or jars set at street-corners to tempt the
Public to produce it, at least to yield it
freely. Thus instead of " Whitbread's Entire"
might there be a sign-post of quite inverse
quality : Somebody's " Effete." — Consider
also the Chinese ; and sniff not at the wants
and the ingenuity of poor man.

It is proof of the height to which Anti-
quity also had carried the art of Taxation,
that Vespasian laid a Duty on these same
Fuller's Pots ; so that whoso was pleased to
set forth his urinal to the world must pay the
Prince for it. — It was on occasion of Titus'
reproaching him with this meanness, that old
V. bid him smell a piece of the money pro-
duced thereby, and said : Dulcis odor lucri ex
requalibet. 1 — Works of the Learned (or rather
Repub. of Letters), v. I. (150 &c) where lies
some curious matter.

Caxton printed in the Almonry of West-

l Vespasian's words, according to Suetonius, in his
Life of the Emperor, c. xxiii, were Atqui e lotio est. It
is Juvenal who wrote :

. . . Lucri bonus est odor ex re
Qualibet. Sat. xiv. 204.

261

NOTE BOOK OF

minster Abbey (why there specially is not
known) : hence, say some, our English
Printers still call their workshop a Chapel. —
(do. elsewhere) —

I squelched my finger-nail (curing smoke
in company with Pate Easton, at Scotsbrig ;
audi effectually, I believe!): the nail is quite
black, but sticks there until a new white one
be formed under it ; the old black nail dead
and worthless, yet performing a worthy sort
of service : how like many a Social Institution
of these days ! But, indeed, so it is ever ; as
I have often enough remarked.

A sneering, jeering Review of Hume's
Essay on Human Nature in Repub. Lett. 1 for
November 1739: to be farther looked into.
The poor Reviewer no doubt imagined he
had done a feat. How the Tables turn !

Saturday, Have now been here for a week :

April 22 n <* 2 quite sickly, lazy, lost, stranded

in a Juan Fernandez ; do not

remember that I have passed many more

l"The present State of the Republick of Letters,"
London, 1723-1736, was the chief literary journal of its
time. In 1736 it was united with the " Literary Mag-
azine," and published as "The History of the Works of
the Learned." This ran from Jan., 1737, to Dec., 1743,
and it. was in it that the review of Hume's Essay ap-
peared.

2 In 1832 Saturday was the 21st of April.

262

THOMAS CARLYLE.

despicable or unjoyful or unprofitable weeks
in my life. No work will forward with me.
What a week ! — A day of it, this day, yet
remains for thee : To work ! To work ! —
Repent not uselessly ; only amend. — I have
fasted (from bread) this breakfast time : may
that be the beginning of better things. — Now
for the " Sheffield Radical."

Sunday Yesterday quite down-pressed,
morning, over-powered (with bodily ob-
struction chiefly) and worthless, or
next to that. Did no work, that can be shown ;
tho' I rather zealously attempted it. Again
endeavour ! Times will mend.

The whole thing I want to write seems
lying in my mind; but I cannot get my eye
on it. The Machine is lazy, languid; the
motive Principle cannot conquer the inertia.

A question arises, whether there ought to
be, in a perfect society, any class of purely
speculative men ? Whether all men should
not be of active employment and habitude ;
their speculation only growing out of their
activity, and incidental thereto ? —

The grand Pulpit is now the Press; the
true Church (as I have said twenty times of
late) is the Guild of Authors. How these
two Churches and Pulpits (the velvet-cushion
one and the metal-type one) are to adjust

263

NOTE BOOK OF

their mutual relations and cognate workings :
this is a problem which some centuries may
be taken up in solving. It is the deepest
thing to be solved in these days.

Every man that writes is writing a new
Bible; or a new Apocrypha; to last for a
week, or for a thousand years : he that con-
vinces a man and sets him working is the
doer of a miracle. [Strange language this :
but it is as in the immigration of the North-
men, or any other great world-revolution,
two languages must get jumbled together, and
old words get new meanings ; all things for
a time being confused enough.]

Ought any writing to be transacted with
such intense difficulty ? Does not the True
always flow lightly from the lips and pen ?
I am not clear in this matter; which is a
deeply practical one with me. Consider the
following also :

The True indeed flows lightly ; but how
stands it with the mixture of True and Un-
true (or Unknown), wherein the latter ele-
ment has to be continually eliminated, and
elaborated, or rejected ? —

One thing, at all events, is plain: Take
not too much care about thy writing, or about
aught else that belongs to thee. Know that
it is intrinsically trivial (as thyself ait) and

264

THOMAS CARLYLE.

will soon perish, — let vanity whisper what she
may. Quick, then ; thro' with it ! Learn
to do it honestly (learn what that means) ;
perfectly thou wilt never do it.

Time flies; while thou balancest a sen-
tence, thou art nearer the final Period.

Cast thy thought forth (so soon as thou
hast thought it) with some fearlessness : let it
sink into the great mass of Action (under
which rolls Eternity !) : let it sink there, since
such was its allotment. Dissolved (what we
call Dead), the Life of it will still go on work-
ing there. Deny thyself; whatsoever is
thyself, consider it as nothing.

This, however, I must say for myself: It
is seldom or never the Phraseology, but al-
ways the Insight, that fails me, and retards
me.

On, then; on! why stand describing how
thou shouldst move ; forward, and move, in
any way.

April 28t. h (Saturday). Finished the day be-
fore yesterday a
Leichenrede on Goethe. 1 Stiff and starched,
and a poor expression of my feelings.

Yesterday wrote to John, &c. To-day am
for these villainous " Corn Law Rhymes "
again : a task that is beginning to get hate-

1 " Funeral discourse," ' Death of Goethe,' published
in the ' New Monthly Magazine ' ; Essays, iv.

265

NOTE BOOK OF

ful to me; so small, so unmanageable — in
the way I have taken it up.

N. B. Be very cautious how you take up
anything. I have a strange reluctance to re-
nounce the road I have entered on, how
stony soever, how roundabout soever. You
do not like to turn back : On then !

Thus does a Time pass, and with the time
its man. The man who can live and work
thro' two Times, and welcome a Palingenesia
after mourning for a Death, is rarely to be
met with — T[iec\k.

When the State Cauldron leaks, there is
nothing but a hissing, and foul ashy steaming
and sputtering; the social Cookery can no
longer be carried on. It must be mended,
then ; let it be mended. Easy to say, difficult
to do ! There are Tinkers that in mending
one hole make a couple. But especially, if
your whole Cauldron has ceased to be metal
at all, and become one thick laminated mass
of rust and corrugation, without heart or soli-
dity anywhere, how then is the soldering-iron
to be applied ; what Tinker so cunning as to
operate with effect there. They do it in this
way : mend with putty. Each mending lasts
for a week, and the outbreaks get more and
more frequent. At last when the mending has
become a daily and hourly matter, and per-
266

THOMAS CARLYLE.

petually there is a puttying and never an end
of leakage, but ever as the puttying proceeds
on the one hand, the dripping and hissing
proceeds on the other, — some indignant State-
Tinker says, Putty will no longer do, but they
must have metal cloutings ; and so sets him
to rivet and to solder, and smites resolutely
with hammer and punch on the old rust
cauldron : what is the issue then ? Ask Earl
Grey with his Reform Bill 1

Gotf? Sauerteig. 1

Sometime about the 4 th of May, finished,
rapidly enough, a Paper on the Corn Law
Rhymer, very little to my mind. It still lies
here ; intended for Napier, who however may
well be excused for rejecting it, so intensely
" speculative-radical " is the whole strain of it.
Perhaps times may have a little changed with
him, even during the last fortnight. —

Purposed next to draw up an Encyclopedia

1 Gottfried Sauerteig (" Leaven," "Yeast") is one of
the names, like Teufelsdrockh, invented by Carlyle, as a
transparent symbolic cloak for his own individuality. In
his Essay on Biography, he thus introduces this person-
age. 4 Here, however, ... we may as well insert some
singular sentences on the importance and significance
of Reality, as they stand written for us in Professor Gott-
fried Sauerteig's ALsthetische Springwiirzel [Aesthetic Cas-
tor-oilplant]; a work, perhaps, as yet new to most Eng-
lish readers. The Professor and Doctor is not a man
whom we can praise without reservation. . . Neverthe-
less in his crabbed, one-sided way he sometimes hits
masses of the truth.' Essays, iv. 55.

267

NOTE BOOK OF

memoir of Lord Byron (for N. and purely in
compliance with his request) ; had accordingly
jotted down some pages of it : but now an
uncertainty arises whether my service (as I
explained the possibility of rendering it) is
wanted ; which uncertainty will soon become
a certainty that said service cannot be had.
I had no manner of call to speak there about
Lord Byron ; and had much rather eschew it.
— I am now for a long Essay on Goethe to
be printed in the Foreign Quarterly Review :
do not in the least see any way thro' it ; feel
only that there is much to be said, or repeated.
Have been idle (from xhepen) for twelve days,
and must alter very soon. — Bulwer Lytton l
writes me, euphuistically announcing that the
Leichenrede, on ' our Greatest that has de-
parted ' is at press, and will be forwarded as
Proofsheet soon: I partly expect it to-night.
Very unsatisfactory was the whole to me. On,
however, taking small heed of it! —

Went down to Scotsbrig on Thursday to
settle about family affairs there. All was
already clear for settlement, by the wise pru-
dence of him who had left us. His last Will
I read over, with a sad and obstructed feel-
ing, yet as a necessary task. All was meth-
odical, just, decisive. He divides his property
equally among the five children who had
helped by their toil to earn it. At first, I
l Bulwer was editor of the New Monthly Magazine.
268

THOMAS CARLYLE.

can remember he was for introducing John
and me also ; but I dissuaded him, inasmuch
as our share was already received, I having
been educated, and John thro' me. A sad
and earnest look was the answer to this pro-
posal: but I now found, for the first time,
that it had been complied with. — All the im-
movable property (some Houses in Eccle-
fechan, yielding between twenty and thirty
Pounds annually) are left in life-rent to my
Mother; reverting finally to the other five.
— My two Brothers valued what was at
Scotsbrig, I acting as Umpire and Father on
the occasion; the whole was managed last
Saturday, not without some study and dis-
cussion, yet in a spirit which ought to satisfy
me; without covetousness or ill-nature ap-
pearing on any side, which in such cases
I understand usually do appear violently
enough. The valuation was somewhere near
the verge of ^600 : James and his two Sisters
made an arrangement, which is to last on
trial for a year ; our good Mother, who how-
ever is independent, will stay with them, and
keep them together. They are not foolish,
far from it, as people go ; but they are young ;
and no community can subsist without a gov-
ernor. — Scotsbrig is much changed for me;
yet the place where of all others I feel among
my loved ones. At home here, I am with
my loved one, and among my tools : other-

269

NOTE BOOK OF

wise it has never yet become homelike to. me.
Let us be content ; let us hope. Der Mensch
ist eigentlich auf Hoffnung gestellt. This is
the 'Place of Hope.'— 1

On Sunday evening I went over with Alick
and Jamie to see our " Aunt Fanny." Found
her in a miserable hut (named Knowehead,
or some such thing) ; a vehement, fiercely-
assiduous and fiercely- thrifty old woman;
very dirty in apparel and environment ; not
without a touch of antique courtesy; and
much flattered by the visit. She is now in
her eightieth year; the last survivor of the
past Time. Her memory seemed excellent,
but she would not talk to questions. A nat-
ural garrulity had become heightened to end-
less copiousness by old age. She described
to me when and where she first saw her Hus-
band; stepping Middlebie Burn, with a blue
jacket and doe-skin breeches, a proper man
to look upon. 2 Also, with infinite minute-
ness, her journey to Peebles, rencontres and
adventures at the Crook Inn; all which
stood perfect in her memory as things of
yesterday. It was in 1773 that she was
wedded. The beginning of the apprentice-

1 " ' Man is properly speaking based upon Hope,' he
has no other possession but Hope; this world of his is
emphatically the Place of Hope." Sartor Resartus,
Book ii. ch. vii.

2 Her husband's name was William Brown. See
Reminiscences, i. 32.

270

THOMAS CARLYLE.

ships she could not date with accuracy. She
was six years older than my Father. In such
a scene and with so many auditors there was
little to be gathered from her. I partly cal-
culate on seeing her again, when her son and
she have removed to their Farm. He (" Wull,"
a strange, half-inspired, half-idiotic character,
miserly, rich, to be wondered at and laughed
at) stands in the strictest subjection to her ;
is not without awe of her, as of a really su-
perior mind. In all points spiritual, the
withered old woman is clearly stronger than
the lumpish, pausing, prosing man.

On Monday morning I came off hither.
Vague rumours of the loss of the Reform
Bill had been circulating in our remote cir-
cle ; these at Dumfries were made clear cer-
tainties. 1 The people have been burning (in
effigy) their Patriot King ; a Butcher at An-
nan had been put in jail for beheading him.
All the things were in a flutter and fluster at
Dumfries, politically speaking ; one of those
tout est perdu's, which occur often enough in

1 On the 7th of May the new Reform Bill was before
the House of Lords, and the Ministry were defeated on
an amendment. On the 9th Lord Grey and his col-
leagues resigned. Then followed the Duke of Welling-
ton's ineffectual attempt to form a ministry. On the
15th Lord Grey resumed office, and on the 4th of June
the Bill was finally carried in the House of Lords by a
majority of eighty-four.

271

NOTE BOOK OF

men's affairs. Rien rf est perdu ; il n'y avait
rien a gagner.

Poor M'Diarmid 1 amused me with his
soap-bubble frothing. A wild little man;
dark in the face; anger and vehemence,
trepidation, indignation, in determination ; a
look too as if he still were not angry enough :
wholly as if a posse of sheriff's officers had
come upon him, and were selling his bed.
Three times, tho' sad enough in heart under
the chill May moonshine, in driving home,
I laughed outright to remember him. The
foolish Editor that he is! A snuff drop
hanging at his nose, smoke (not fire) in his
eye, distraction in his aspect: and all for
what? Because a batch of Incapables had
been turned to the street, and a batch of
Capables, perhaps a shade more knavish
than the other had been substituted in their
room. — Our withers are unwrung.

The question now arises which no one is
prepared to answer : what will follow next ;
what is to be done next ? I comforted poor
Mac that " King Arthur " (so he would name
poor Wellington) would not try governing by
the bayonet; would study to seat himself
firmly on the coachbox, and then drive —
whither the people forced him : at all events
would drive ; not sit flourishing the whip and

1 Editor of The Dumfries Courier.
272

THOMAS CARLYLE.

stirring no hair's breadth, as the others had
done for eighteen months long. To me (who
know nothing whatever of these latest doings)
it seems not unlikely that Arthur will pass a
Bill, perhaps very like the other, perhaps
better. Let him take his own mind : me or
mine he cannot help much or hinder much.
One great comfort I shall have : talk will be
changed into actions the country will not
die of starvation, but at worst by grapeshot
and gunshot. —

So then our " Friends " are all on the
pavement ; ousted in one short week ! One
Tuesday M'Diarmid crows stout defiance,
triumphant note of victory; next Tuesday,
the crow has become a screaming cackle;
a kite has pounced down and eaten up the
sun. Lord Chancellor Brougham, that vir-
tuous man Viscount Althorp, the incompara-
ble Earl Grey, Lord Advocate and all the
rest — must take the road in such weather as
chances to be blowing. — For Jeffrey (to
whom alone the slightest interest attaches
me) I rather esteem it a happiness. Brougham
but "bides his time;" and, if he live, will
come again, not whig but radical. Earl Grey
deserves his fate : he set the interests of Eng-
land and those of his own small fractional
(unjustifiable) part of England on the same
level; would in his own way save both or
neither; has in consequence lost only him-

18 273

NOTE BOOK OF

self. Can the man not see that Lordhood is
becoming obsolete, that Manhood is hence-
forth the only order ? Be he reputed honest
(I believe him to be so, whiggishly speaking) :
and with that character let him retire from
the public scene forever and a day.

Or is this the state of it ? Granting the
King to be an Imbecile and Nonentity, has
he changed so much for the worse ? He gets
a professed Dugald Dalgetty or Soldier of
Fortune, able to fight, ready to fight on any
side, for his pay : he parts with a ' Soldier of
Principle,' but who unhappily did not know
what his principle was, or who had two in-
compatible principles, and so stood ready to
fight on some side, could he have seen which;
but unable to fight on any. —

Poor " Patriot King"! I never cheered
him or heeded him; only once laughed at
him (as I witnessed his Coronation proces-
sion); and now do not upbraid him. The
wisest man in the world might pause in that
situation : what shall the foolishest do ?

The only Reform is in thyself. Know this
O Politician, and be moderately political.

For me I have never yet done any one po-
litical act; not so much as the signing of a

274

THOMAS CARLYLE.

petition. My case is this : I comport myself
wholly like an alien ; like a man who is not
in his own country ; whose own country lies
perhaps a century or two distant. When the
time comes, should it ever come, that I can
do any good in such coming forward, then let
me not hang back. Meanwhile pay thy taxes
to his Majesty and the rest, so long as they
can force thee ; the instant they cannot force
thee, that instant cease to pay. This has
been my political principle for many a year.
The passing or the failing of innumerable Re-
form Bills might not alter it much : money is
paid to him who does a service worth money;
obedience is due to him who governs : to him
who wears the governor's mask, the mask of
obedience, — as to the ass in lion's skin (who
in any case could kick) — while you are near
him. —

And now a truce to Politics. All this I
have written down, this Wednesday, May
16th, 1832 years: knowing that it is trivial;
also that some day even these transitory
phrases will have meaning.

Reminiscence. Two nights before leaving
London I went down to the House of Com-
mons with W. Fraser, who however could not
get admittance for himself and me ; a thing I
partly rejoiced at. We went to a Club house
in S* James's, the first and only one I was

275

NOTE BOOK OF

ever in. Waited also afterwards a while in
the Lobby of the " House " : while here saw
Macaulay (Thomas Babington) come out,
and buy two oranges; a sign, Fraser said,
that he was going to speak; which accord-
ingly next day showed that he had done.
Macaulay, whom I noted strictly, is a short
squat thickset man of vulgar but resolute en-
ergetic appearance. Fair-complexioned, keen
gray eyes, a large cylindrical head set close
down between two strong round shoulders;
the brow broad and fast-receding, the crown
flat — perhaps it was baldish. Inclines al-
ready to corpulence, tho' I suppose he is not
five-and-thirty, of which age or a somewhat
higher he wore the air. The globular will one
day be his shape, if he continue. I likened
him, in my own mind, to a managing Iron-
master (I know not well why); with vigorous
talent for that or some such business (on what
scale fortune may order) ; with little look of
talent for anything higher. He is the young
man of most force at present before the world.
Successful he may be to great lengths, or not
at all, according as the times turn: mean-
while, the limits of his worth are discernible
enough. Great things lie not in him. It is
a fatal circumstance that he rests satisfied with
being a Critic, feels not the want of any force
belonging to himself, wherewith he might do
somewhat ; has yet attained to no belief, and
276

Q

THOMAS CARLYLE.

apparently is not wretched for not having any.
The moral nature of the man I take to be in-
trinsically common ; hence, if no otherwise,
were his intellectual nature marked as com-
mon also. He is the only young man of any
gift, at this period, who is a whig; another
characteristic. He may be heard of, and
loudly; but what is being heard of? Who-
soever beats a drum is heard of. Let us
hope too that M. will gain better insight, a
clear, manly foundation, and be what he might
be : "a man among clothes-screens."

As for Fraser's Clubhouse, it was a splen-
did mansion, with dining-rooms (where
whiskered hungry people, Irishmen mostly,
sat devouring viands and drinking cham-
pagne), drawing-rooms full of sofas, pier
glasses, periodicals &c &c. We went and
lounged in one for a quarter of an hour. It
is called the Windham Club, I think. The
house had belonged to some dissipated dis-
tracted Irish Nobleman, who had married a
woman of infamous character, still living,
and sinning, her husband having made the
world rid of him some years before.

The Clubs are a curious feature of Lon-
don : the principle of Sociality being quite
gone, that of Gregariousness is there in full
action. Men combine together, professing
no other object than that they may have
277

THOMAS CARLYLE.

cheaper food and drink and accommodation
than separately could be come at. They
have all grown up since I was in London
before. A more significant phenomenon
than is usually recognized in them.

But here, my paper being done, let me
close. Joy and sorrow ; irreparable losses ;
toils fruitless or fruitful : a share of all lies
noted in this little Tome. Onwards are we
going, ever onwards: Eternity alone can
give back what Time daily takes away. I
am Fatherless now, (thank God, not yet
Motherless) : be all that remains the dearer.
Improve, cherish, laudably work with what-
ever Time gives and leaves. Gedenke zu
leben ! 1 Farewell ye loved ones ! I have
still zu leben.

l " Resolve to live! "

278

Autograph Letter.

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Chelsea, 25 June, 1862.

11 Seekest thou great things, seek them not

/»

/ could do no good with your ' ' Tragedy, " after
never so much endeavour, it depends on Playhouse
Managers, etc. etc.; — and is, I must say, likely to
have been an unreasonable, tho" 1 innocent attempt,
on the part of a young man, inexperienced in Life,
much more in the suitable ways of Delineating
and Expounding what Life is and should be.

Forgive my plainness of Speech. But it is my
standing advice to all young persons who trace in
themselves a superior capacity of mind, to select,
beyond all other conditions, a silent course of ac-
tivity ; — and to disbelieve totally the babble of re-
views and newspapers, and loud clamour of Non-
sense everywhere prevalent, that " Literature"
(even if one were qualified) is the truly noble hu-
man career. Far other, very far ! since you ask
my opinion. The greatest minds I have known,
or have authentically heard of, have not been the
speaking ones at all, — much less in these loud
times ; raging with palaver, and with so little
else, from sea to sea! —

In very great haste (wishing you well, not ill),

T Carlyle.

INDEX

INDEX.

Action and Morality, 228

Actions, great, sometimes histori-
cally barren, 171; smallest, some-
times very fruitful, 171

Adam, fable concerning, 81, 82

Advertising, Carlyle upon, 208,
209 ; amount spent by two book-
sellers annually in, 208

Aikin, Lucy, " Memoirs of Queen
Elizabeth," 4

Air, always hope in the, 106

Age, every, full of vicissitudes to its
people, 141

Alexander, remark by Carlyle con-
cerning, 7; compared with
Hambden, 7 ; expedition of,
compared with St. Paul's mis-
sion, 171

Alfieri, on genius, 30

Alison, Rev. Archibald, " Essay
on Taste," 84; criticism of, 84

"Anatomy of Melancholy," ex-
tracts from, 85; anecdote con-
cerning, 98

Antimachus Clarius, on Plato, 124

Areopagitica, Milton's, Carlyle on,
2 9> 3°

Aristocracy, a true, wanted, 179

Aristotle, as to Action andThought,
81; upon solitude, 122 {note 2) ;
"Philosophy" of, contrasted with
" Sermon on the Mount," 171

Arlesford, Battle of, defeat of Roy-
alists at, 9 ; location of, 9

Art, is, higher than Religion ? 204 ;
possibility of, at this era, 215;
materials of, everywhere, 227,
228

Ascham, Roger, birth and death,
89; tutor to Queen Elizabeth,
89; his chief and other works,
89; life of, by Dr. Johnson, 89;
"a good sort of man and well
worth study," 89

Bacon, on solitude, 122, 123
Badams, friend of Irving, calls on

Carlyle, 194 ; described by Mrs.

Montagu 195 (see note 1)

Ballhorn, stanza from Golden A B
C, 118 (for trans, see p. 177)

Barclay, John, 25 (see note)

Bardili, his "Rational Realism,"
112; similar to Malebranche ? 112

Baretti, short account of, 130, 131 ;
adventure of, in London, 131 ;
his works and character, 131 (see
also note)

Beaumont (and Fletcher), drama-
tists, disappointing to Carlyle,
31; criticism of 31, 32

Bentham, Jeremy, significance of,
171; senility of, 236

"Benvenuto Cellini," criticism
upon, 186

Berkenhout, Dr., his "Literary
History of England," 147

Biography, the only history, 238

Bohmen, ex-king of, comes to Lon-
don, takes Covenant, and re-
ceives pension, n

Book, by Carlyle, description of
projected, 29

Books (French), to be read, 52,
53; where met with, 52; (Ger-
man) recommended in Herder,
75» 7°> 77; recommended by Mr.
Aitken, 121 ; more, to be read,
123, 127; more, to be seen, 142,
143 ; list of English, 146 ; list
of, copied from Croker's Bos-
well's Johnson, 242, 243

Boscovich, Kant reminds Carlyle
of, 112; died mad, 130

Bossuet, " Oraisons funebres," 10

Bouterwek, his "System of Vir-
tuality," 112

Bo wring, Sir John, meets Carlyle,
196 (see note 4)

Bradock-Down, Battle of, 6 ; loca-
tion of, 6; defeat of the Par-
liament at, 6; indifferently de-
scribed, 6

Brandes, Johann Christian, " Au-
tobiography," 121

Brentford, Royalist general, de-
feated at Arlesford by Waller,
9 ; rescued from Donnington, 10

289

INDEX.

Brerewood, what of? 25

Brewster, Sir David, meets Car-
lyle, 256; Carlyle's opinion of,
256

Brothers, Richard, 216 (see also
note 2)

Brougham, Lord, Carlyle prophe-
sies concerning, 273

Browne, Sir T., his " Religio Me-
dici," "Urne Burial," and
"Vulgar Errors," 67; Carlyle's
opinion of, 68 ; midway between
poetand orator, 69 ; his '* Religio
Medici" most readable, 69 ; errs
in giving himself too good a
character, 69; account of, 90;
knighted by Charles II, 90

Bruyere, La, characterization of,
of, 126

Buller, Mrs., verses to, by Dr.
Leyden, 65

Burgess, Dr. , who was ? 1

Burns, contrasted with Scott, 127;
Carlyle finishes a paper on, 129

Burrow, Sir J., 29

Burton, quotations from, 85, 86;
little to be learned about him,
90 ; short account of 90 ; firm
believer in Astrology, 90 ; anec-
dote of his life at Oxford, 01 ;
quotations from, 97; Carlyle's
characterization of, 99

Byron, a "kraftmann," at his
death, 17; Carlyle's opinion of
him, 71 (see also note) ; a brief
definition of, 230

Cabbage, the, characterization of,
105

Caesar, remark by Carlyle concern-
ing, 7 ; compared with Hambden,
7; Hadrian's epitaph on, 123

Capel, Lord, 17

Carisbrook Casde, Charles I con-
fined in, 15; treaty with Scots
signed by Charles in, 15

Carlyle (Mrs.), Jane Welsh, arrives
in London, 21 (see note 1)

Carlyle, Thomas, begins first note-
book while reading Clarendon's
History, 1 ; invokes fortune, 1 ;
finishes third volume of Claren-
don, 19; ill health of, 54;
despondency of, 55; rejection of
suicide by, 56 (see note, p. 57) ;

Carlyle, Thomas — continued.
estimate of true affection, 58;
to leave Kinnaird, 58; hopes of
Wilhelm Meister (translation),
58; Schiller, Part II, sent to Lon-
don, 54; Schiller, Part III, be-
gun, 59; effect of drugs on, 59 ;
scribbling, not writing Schiller,
59; anxiety about Schiller (the
book), 59; farewell to 1823, 59,
60; has trouble with the intro-
duction to Schiller, 60; at Hod-
dam Hill, 64; despondency of,
64, 65, 66 ; marries, 67 ; finishes
" Anatomy of Melancholy," 98 ;
doubtful what to say concerning
it, 98; sums up Burton and his
book, 98, 99 ; on a diseased liver,
and virtue as its own reward,
103; finishes article for "Edin-
burgh Review," 140; to see Jef-
frey at Dumfries, 141 ; thinks
seriously of discussing Martin
Luther, 142 ; proposes to write
an essay on Metaphors, 142 ;
criticizes Political Economists,
144; is occupied writing a " His-
tory of German Literature," 147
(see note) ; comments on his
difficulties in doing so, 148 ; re-
bukes himself, 148, 149; on the
origin of quarrels, 149, 150; has
"done with the Germans,'' 150;
inquires how much truth is in
them, 150; gets rid of Material-
ism, 151 ; inquires into the na-
ture of a miracle, 151 ; asks what
is poetry, 151 ; laments his lack
of memory, 151 ; doubts if he
shall succeed, 152, cannot judge
of his own talent, 152; writes
letter to Dumfries "Courier," 153
(see note) ; gets on badly with a
speculation on History, 154 ;
is asked to write a life of Goethe,
154 (see note) ; also of Luther,
x 54> J 55; his sentiment as re-
gards a life of Luther, 155; is
offered an annuity by Jeffrey,
but refuses, 155 (see note) ; com-
ments upon this, 155 ; confesses
his error about independence,
156; begins second volume of
" German Literary History,"
156; his impression concerning

290

INDEX.

Carlyle, Thomas — continued.
it, 156; on the death of his sister
Margaret, 157 ; on the Saint-
Simonians, 158 (see also note
2) ; failure of project as to " His-
tory of German Literature," 163 ;
reproaches himself, 163 (see
note 2) ; has glimpses of the
power of spiritual union, 164;
exhorts himself to be up and
doing, 165, 166; writes "The
Beetle," 170; undefined aim of,
170; criticizes " Fraser's Maga-
zine," 170; refers to John Wil-
son ("Christopher North"),
170; declares printing not to be
the symbol of literature, 170,
171 ; compares great and small
actions, 171 ; quotes examples,
171; compares moral and in-
tellectual nature of man, 171;
defines the significance of Christ,
171 ; defines the place of Jeremy
Bentham, 171; pities England,
172; contrasts Utilitarians and
Whigs, 182; has no patience
with Dilettanti, 172 ; defines the
Sin of the age, 172; condemns
the idle, 172; visit of the Jeffreys
to, 173 (see note) ; criticizes
Jeffrey at length, 173, 174, 175;
begins "Sartor Resartus," 176;
on Seclusion and Meditation,
176; on Silence, 176; as to
Words, 176; as to Silence and
Speech, 177; as to Secrecy, 177;
"On Clothes," 177; receives
the ornamented " Schiller" from
Goethe, 177 (see note i,p. 178) ;
sends the "Clothes "to Fraser,
178 (see note 2) ; comments on
political state of England, 178,
179; divine right of squires equal
to that of kings, 179; as to prop-
erty, 179; as to Art and Poetry,
180; the logical import of life,
180; analyzes his condition, 181;
hears from his brother John,
182; criticizes Taylor, 182; on a
stanza by Mrs. Carlyle, 182;
trouble with " Teufelsdreck,"
183 (see notes 1, 2) ; refers to
Goethe, 183; literary prospects
of, 183 ; on the state of Europe,
183; on the state of England,

Carlyle, Thomas — continued.
184 ; on the frame of society,
184 ; as to the only sovereigns
of the world, 184 ; as to divine
right in kings, 184, 185; the
derivation of honor-titles, past
and future, 185; reliance on
God, 185; comment on Jeffrey,
185; criticizes Benvenuto Cellini,
186; on Pope's "Odyssey of
Homer," 187; Homer or Shakes-
peare the greater ? 187; inquires
as to constitution of a Whole,
187 ; as to the true Heroic Poems,
188 ; seeks the true relation of
moral to poetic genius, 188;
characterizes the words of Jesus,
189; ends the first Note-book at
Craigenputtock, 189; exhorts
himself, 189; leaves Craigen-
puttock for London, 191 (see note
1) ; account of journey, 191, 192,
193 ; calls on the Lord Advocate,
193; is advised to try Murray
with " Sartor " and sees him,
194; comment on the meeting,
194 ; meets the Badamses, 194 ;
renews acquaintance with the
Montagues, 194 (see note 3) ;
calls on Mrs. Montagu, 195 (see
notes 1 and 2) ; calls on Long-
man's with Napier's letter, 196;
meets with refusal of "German
Literary History," 196; renews
acquaintance with the Stracheys
and Bowring, 196; sees Allan
Cunningham, 196 ; writes to
Goethe, 197; visits Shooter's
Hill, 197 (see note 1) ; breakfasts
with the Jeffreys, 198 ; sees
Edward Irving, 198; appoints to
dine with Drummond, 198 (see
note 4) ; meets Godwin, 198 ;
characterization of Godwin,
199; ill health of, 200; journal
writing discontinued by, 200; in-
quiry as to education, 200 ;
notes the arrival of Mrs. Carlyle,
201 ; comments on " Sartor Re-
sartus," 201 (see note 1) ; meets
Gustave d'Eichthal, the Saint-
Simonian, 201 ; notes loss of Re-
form Bill, 202; notes illness of
Jeffrey, 202 ; meets Sir J. Macin-
tosh and describes him, 202,

2 9 ]

INDEX.

Carlyle, Thomas — continued.
203; refers to Dr. Fleming, 203
(see note 1) ; inquires as to the
true duty of a man, 203 , as to
Reverence the need of men,
203 ; complains of stupidity,
204; inquiry into dictum by
Goethe and Schiller that art is
higher than religion, 204; notes
tendency to speculate on men,
not man, 205 ; comments on the
general condition of things, 206,
207: complains that good shoes
cannot be had in London, 207
(see note) ; states the universal
problem of man, 208; notes a
harder problem, to be found in
London, 208; upon advertising
ox puffing, 208,209; caus Lon-
don the Goshen of quacks, 209 ;
on how to remedy things, 209 ;
on the size of London, 209, 210;
notes extravagant price of po-
tatoes, 210; comments on the
hurry of life in London, 210;
notes the isolation of life in Lon-
don, 210; on the want of Gov-
ernment in, 211 ; on the torpidity
of the Soul, 211 (see note 1) ; to
write for the "Edinburgh Re-
view," 212; as to a course of lec-
tures in London, 212 {note 1) ;
inquires as to province of oral
teaching, 212; avers London to
be ignorant of art, 212 ; as to
eloquence in himself, 212; upon
Hazlitt's "Table Talk," 213
(see note 3) ; dines with Fon-
blanque, 213; describes him,
213 ; receives Allan Cunning-
ham, 214 ; analyzes him, 214 ;
as to Sir Walter Scott, 214 ; upon
the advantage of the pulpit, 215 ;
as to the meaning of symbol,
215; on the possibility of Art at
this era, 215; "where is to-
morrow?" 215; classifies so-
ciety, 215, 216; note on Richard
Brothers, 216; meets Charles
Lamb at Enfield, 217; opinion
of Lamb, 217, 218, 219 (see
note 1, p. 217, and note 1, p.
218) ; on the difficulty of obtain-
ing the truth, 217; notes wild
riots in Bristol, 219 (see notes 1,

Carlyle, Thomas — continued.
2, p. 220) ; has a " striking ar-
ticle " to write, but finds it " un-
speakably " difficult, 220 ; gen-
eral apprehension of cholera
unshared by, 221 (see note 1) ;
as to "Life "and "Existence,"
221; the "hohe Bedeutung des
Entsagen," 221 (see note 2) ;
conception of Immortality de-
pends on that of Time, 222 ;
laments the absence of" Sports,"
222; upon education, 222, 223;
upon the best and the worst
educated man, 223 ; prophesies
the union of authors, 223 ; as to
the end of the world, 223; the
Cockney the most ignorant
creature of his class, 224; on the
date and origin of playing cards,
224; on "Merelles," 224, 225;
idle and out of sorts, 225 ; relates
origin of Sadler's Well, 225;
finds life sad and stern, 226;
longs for the end, 226 ; meets Mr.
(later Sir Henry) Taylor, 226;
visited by Glen, 226 ; characteri-
zation of, and advice, to Glen,

226, 227; inseparability (for man)
of evil and good, 226, 227; finds
materials of Art everywhere, but
not the artist to embody them,

227, 228; notes arrival of cholera
at Sunderland 228 ; urges him-
self to work, 228; "the noble-
ness of Silence," 228 ; as to
Thinking and Thoughts, 228 ;
as to Morality and Action, 228,
229 ; perfect morality not an ob-
ject of consciousness, 229 ; fin-
ishes the " Characteristics,"
230; his opinion of it, 230; de-
fines Byron, 230; reads Croker's
Boswell's Johnson, 230; pur-
poses an essay on it, 230 ; diffi-
culty in writing the "Character-
istics," 230, 231 ; engages with
Lardner to furnish a " History
of German Literature," 231 ;
difficulty concerning it, 231 ;
pestered by magazine editors,
231 ; comments on the strange
state of literature, 231, 232 ; as
to Bulwer Lytton, 232; feeling
as to Tait and his new Radical

292

INDEX.

Carlyle, Thomas — continued.
magazine, 232 ; as to Fraser and
his magazine, 232 ; a rule for writ-
ing, 232 ; writes for the " Athen-
aeum," 232; dislikes being ad-
vertised, 232 ; blames himself for
writing for Dilke, 233 ; writes to
his brother John in Rome, 233 ;
proposes article on the author
of the Corn Law Rhymes, 233 ;
remarks scarcity of ideas in Lon-
don, 233 ; " Sartor" still unpub-
lished, 233 ; indifferent as to the
publication of it, 234; meets
Abraham Hayward, 234; Hay-
ward's service to, 234 ; dines
with Hayward, 235 ; describes
the evening, 235 ; meets Sir
Alexander Johnston, 235 ; char-
acterizes Macaulay, 236; epito-
mizes Rogers, 236 ; opinion of
Moore, 236; on Bentham, 236;
seeks to visit Dr. Johnson's
places of abode, 237 ; difficulty
of finding places in London,
237 ; notes the need of a lending
library in London, 237 (see note
2) ; sees that biography is the
only history, 238; the aspect
of the world to, 238 ; quotes
epitaph from Johnson, 238 (see
note 2); quotes "Dies Irae,"
239 et seq. ; comments on Parson
Hackman, 243 ; reads Hazlitt's
" Liber Amoris," 243, 244 ;
ridicules it, 244 ; as to Dr. Camp-
bell, 244 ; meets Mr. Shepherd
(Unitarian parson), 244 ; de-
scribes him, 245; characterizes
Unitarians, 245 ; St. Paul's or
" Paradise Lost " the more neces-
sary? 245; finds Franklin's defi-
nition of man in Boswell, 245;
avers literature to be priceless,
245 ; writes unsatisfactory intro-
duction to essay on Johnson, 245,
246 ; sadness of mirth not based
on earnestness, 246 ; receives Jef-
rey, 246; as to 0'Connell,247; as
to the Scotch, English, and Irish
courts, 247; convinced that
English law must be re-made,
248; meets Gustave d'Eichthal
again, 248 ; opinion of him, 248 ;
sees Arthur Buller, 248 ; dines

Carlyle, Thomas — continued.
with Fraser in Regent Street,
248; meets Allan Cunningham,
James Hogg, and Lockhart,
248; describes Lockhart, 249;
describes Gait, 249 ; describes
Hogg (the "Ettrick Shep-
herd"), 250; condemns the
evening spent with Fraser, 251,
252 ; chronicles death of his fa-
ther, 252 (see note 1) ; finishes
paper on Johnson, "not wholly
without worth," 252; investi-
gates Diderot, 253 ; quotes con-
cerning Diderot from the " Biog-
raphie Universelle," 253; as to
Bishop Douglas, 254; breaks with
Lardner, 254 ; settles with Fraser
about essay on Johnson, 255 ;
criticizes " Fraser's Magazine,"
255 ; as to the state of book-
selling, 255; longs (with Mrs.
Carlyle) to be home, 255; likes
London, but not the climate,
256 ; quotes remark of Sir N. H.
Nicholas as to booksellers, 256 ;
describes Sir David Brewster,
256; meets Leigh Hunt through
"Characteristics," 256; de-
scribes him, 257 ; writes to John
Carlyle at Rome, 258; calls on
Schlegel, but hopes not to see
him, 258 ; terms Schlegel a liter-
ary Gigman, 258; meets William
Maginn, 258 ; describes him, 258
(see also note) ; as to the origin
of " Fraser's Magazine," 259 ;
leaves London, 259 (see note) ;
hears of the death of Goethe,
259 ; realizes his last letter to
Goethe would arrive too late,
260 ; describes the Tribula, 260 ;
comments on the fuller's craft
among the Romans, 260, 261 ;
as to Vespasian and the fuller's
craft, 261; " squelches " his fin-
ger-nail, 262 ; philosophizes on
it, 263 ; complains of ill health,
262, 263 ; as to the true pulpit
and true Church, 263; upon
the right of speculative men to
exist, 263; on writers, 264;
should writing be difficult ? 264 ;
cautions himself as to writing,
264 ; exhorts himself to honesty

293

INDEX,

Carlyle, Thomas — continued.
in writing, 265 ; defines his diffi-
culty in writing, 265; finishes
funeral discourse on Goethe, 265
(see note 1) ; takes up Corn Law
Rhymes, 265 ; his reluctance to
renounce a road once entered on,
266; reflects on the tinkering
of the State, 266, 267 (see note,
p. 267) ; finishes a paper on the
Corn Law Rhymer, 267; pur-
poses memoir of Lord Byron for
"New Monthly Magazine,"
268; projects essay on Goethe
for "Foreign Quarterly Re-
view," 268 ; is idle for twelve
days, 268; hears from Lytton
about the Goethe funeral dis-
course, 268 ; goes down to Scots-
brig to settle family affairs, 268 ;
gives an account of the settle-
ment of his father's will, 268,
269 ; as to his Aunt Fanny and
her son, 270, 271 ; hears rumors
of loss of New Reform Bill, 271,*
on the political situation, 272,
2 73> 274 ; on the only Reform,
274 ; his alienation from politics,
274 ; his political principle, 275 ;
goes with Fraser to House of
Commons, but fails to get in,
275; sees Macaulay in lobby of
House, 276; describes Macau-
lay, 276, 277; visits Windham
Club with Fraser, 277 ; describes
Windham Club, 277 ; on clubs
in general, 277; farewell reflec-
tions, 278

Carnwath, Earl of, anecdote of, at
Naseby, 12

Chalgrove-field, skirmish at, be-
tween Thame and Oxford, 6

Champollion, inventor of phonetic
characters, in ; well received in
Italy, in

Chapel, origin of the word, as used
by printers, 261, 262

Character, national, the description
of a, tends to realize itself, 154

Characters, phonetic, well received
in Italy, in

Charles I, seizes members of Com-
mons "accused of Treason," 2;
eludes Waller at Worcester, 10 ;
rejoins Queen at Oxford, 10;

Charles I — continued.
fights at Cropredy-bridge, 10;
follows Essex into the West, 10 ;
defeats him at Lostwithiel, 10 ; is
beaten at Newbury, 10; retires
to Oxford, 10; retires to Chep-
stow after Naseby, 13; thence to
Cardiff, etc., 13; inclines to join
Montrose, 13 ; sends Lord Digby
north to Dumfries, 13; at Ox-
ford in 1646, 14; surrenders to
Scotch army at Newark, 14;
seized at Holmby by Cornet
Joyce, 14 ; brought to Newmar-
ket, 15 ; Henderson attempts to
convert, to Presbyterianism, 15 ;
signs treaty with Scots in Caris-
brooke, 15; beheaded, 16; Car-
lyle's opinion of, 16

Charles II, "getting settled in
Scotland," 3 ; Milton's fear con-
cerning, 3; stanza on, 5 ; goes
to Stilly in 1646, 14 ; at the
Hague, 16

Charles III, of Spain, last years of,
most illustrious, 109

Chaucer, Godfrey, his house Don-
nington, near Newbury in Wilts,8

Chillingworth, Mr., taken at Arun-
del, 9 ; illtreatment of, 9

Cholera,apprehensionof,not shared
by Carlyle, 221

Christ, Jesus, the significance of,
171 ; the words of, characterized,
189

Christianity,, introduced into Eng-
land about A. d. 180, 23

Church, the true, 263

Cicero, anecdote of Antimachus
Clarius, 124

Cockney, the, the most ignorant
man of his class, 224

Coleridge, on talent and genius,
46; on ideas, 78

Comley Bank, 67 (see note)

Conduct, 31, note

Confessio fidei (of Wallensteins
Jager), translation of, 61, 62,63

Cookery, the ultimate object of, 71

Cor ne edito, 165 (see note)

Corniani, "Secoli della Let. It,"
130

Cote, 31, note

Courtesies, of polished life, Carlyle
on the, 126

294

INDEX.

Craft, the fuller's, among the
Romans, 260, 261

Critics, German, curious people,
33 ; comparison of, with English
and Scotch, 33; favorable to
Germans, 33

Cromwell, Oliver, remark to Lord
Falkland touching The Remon-
strance, 1; chosen to command
force under Manchester, 9; his
" iron band " at Marston Moor,
10; proposes "self denying ordi-
nance," 1 1 ; general in the West,
14 ; orders Joyce to seize Charles
I, 14; secretly doomed to the
Tower, but escapes to the army,
15 ; defeats Scotch under Duke
of Hamilton, 16 ; Carlyle com-
ments upon, 17; dissolves the
Parliament by force, 18; sum-
mons Barebone's Parliament, 18 ;
declared Protector, 18 ; prose-
cutes Lilburn, 18; death, 19;
Carlyle to ascertain more clearly
the aims of, 31 ; a life of, desira-
ble, 93

Cunningham, Allan, meets Car-
lyle in London, 196; visits the
Carlyles, 214; meets Carlyle at
Fraser's, 249

Dante, commentators on, in

" Defensio Gigmanica," the, 216
(see note 1)

D'Eichthal, Gustave, the Saint-
Simonian, meets Carlyle (see
note 2) ; acquainted with Emer-
son, 201 (see note 2)

Delegates, Convention of, to ex-
pedite Reform Bill, 206

Delusion, popular, as to, 105, 106

Denovan, Denny, 59

Descartes, founds all truth on God,
100; differs from the English,
who found God on truth, 100

Desideratum, the great, in society,

152
Didot, F. , French printer, number

of volumes produced annually
by, no
Digby, Lord, advises king to seize
members of the House of Com-
mons, 2; despatched north by
Charles I, 13; deserts his army
at Dumfries, 13

Dilettantism, the Sin of the age,

172
Dilke, C. W., 208, 209 (see notes)
" Dumfries Courier," the, Carlyle

writes letter to, 153 (see also

note 2)
Dunoyer, writer on Industrialism,

113
Drake, various quotations from,
146 (see also note 2)

Ebel, Dr., 107

Economists, Political, error of, 143 ;
Carlyle's query as to, 143, 144;
the whole phdosophy of, 144 ;
uselessness of, 144; should col-
lect statistical facts, 160

Economy, Political, as to, 100;
present science of, requires little
intellect, 160; though young, is
decrepit, 160

Edgehill, Battle of, 5 ; location of,
6

Education, Carlyle upon, 222, 223
(see note 1, p. 223)

Elizabeth, Queen, men of her time
the Romans or Greeks of English
history, 70; her literature the
only true poetical literature of
England, 70

Ellwood, reader of Latin to Milton,
21 ; his life of himself, 21 ; Car-
lyle's opinion of, 21 ; life of, why
read by Carlyle, 21 ; description
of, 21 ; compared with Alfieri,
Goethe, Voltaire, 22

Emperors, Roman, anecdotes of

8 7 . . .

Empiricism, does it lead to Athe-
ism? 102

Empirics, the, 102

England, Carlyle desires to know,
132; no precise history of, 132;
the old literature of, 132 ; to un-
derstand her, one must under-
stand her Church, 133; dearth
of artists in, 133; dearth of mu-
sicians and painters in, 133 ; the
characteristic strength of, 134 ;
character of the people of, 134

English, the, found all truth on
God, 100

Entsagen (Renunciation), 221 (see
note 2)

Erasmus, characterization of, 118

295

INDEX.

Esbie, Captain, "there is nothing

like getting on," 104
Evil, inseparable (for man) from

good, 227 (see note 2)
Existence, individual, a mystery,

161; social, still more, 161 (see

note); speculations on, 161, 162;

life only the portico of man's, 221
Eye, the spiritual and bodily, 136

Fable, 91 ; instruction communi-
cated by, chiefly prohibitive, 92 ;
the Conjurer (II), 93; as to the
necessity of any man (III), 101;
as to development of character
(IV), 105

Fairfax, Lord, defeats Royalists at
Naseby, 12; general in the
West, 14 ; seizes Colchester, 16

Falkland, Lord, Cromwell's remark
to, concerning The Remon-
strance, 1 ; killed at Battle of
Newbury, 8; Clarendon's opin-
ion of, 8; Carlyle on, 8, 9; be-
longed to Lord Byron's regi-
ment, 9

Fichte, a metaphysical atheist, 46;
his "Transcendental Idealism,"
112 ; pretended to have deduced
his system from Kant, 112

Fleetwood, a trooper in the
Guards, 5; sent by Essex to
Shrewsbury, 5 ; son of Sir Miles
Fleetwood, 19

Fletcher (and Beaumont), drama-
tists, disappointing to Carlyle,
31; criticism of, 31, 32

Fonblanque (editor of "Exam-
iner"), entertains Carlyle, 213,
214 (see note 1, p. 214)

Foreign minds and characters hard
to judge truly, 92 ; exemplifica-
tion, 92

Foscarini, Sebastian, Doge of
Venice, inscription on tomb of,
89 (see also note 2)

France, printers, booksellers and
authors in, 1 10 ; number of vol-
umes printed annually in, no;
number of printing offices in,
no; number of active presses in,
no; amount spent annually in
printing in, no; number of book-
sellers in, no; amount earned
by authors annually in, no

Franklin, definition of man by,
245; anticipates " Teufelsdreck "
in it, 245

Fraser, James (publisher of
" Fraser's Magazine"), enter-
tains Carlyle at dinner, 249; set-
tles with Carlyle about essay on
Johnson, 255

"Fraser's Magazine," criticized
by Carlyle, 170; characterized
by Carlyle, 232; described by
Carlyle, 259

Fraser, W. (brother to James
Fraser), editor of " Foreign Re-
view," 249 (see note) ; entertains
Carlyle, 256; is denied admit-
tance to the House of Commons
with Carlyle, 275 ; takes Carlyle
to the Windham Club, 275 ; sees
Macaulay in lobby of House,
276 ; remark concerning Macau-
lay, 276

Friendship, not mentioned in New
Testament, 106

Fuller, craft of the, among the
Romans, 260, 261

Gall, borrows from Herder, 46

Gallicistes, the, 109

Gait, John, meets Carlyle at Fra-
ser's, 249 ; described by Carlyle,
249, 250

Gassendi, as to the metaphysics of?
102; "the father of existing
French Philosophy," 102

Gellert, anecdote of, 122

Genius, Alfieri on, 30; Coleridge's
distinction between talent and,
46; the true relation of moral to
poetic, inquired into, 188

" Genoveva," Tieck's, considera-
tion of characters in, 73

Gherardini, translator and im-
pugner of Schlegel, in

Gleig, G. R., Rev., writes to Car-
lyle concerning Goethe and
Luther, 154 (see note)

Glen, , 200 (see note 1)

Godwin, William, meets Carlyle,
198; characterized by Carlyle,
199 ; his life of Mary Wollstone-
craft, 204; epitomized by Car-
lyle, 205

Goethe, on the spending of time,
31; Carlyle's query as to, 32

296

INDEX.

Goethe — continued.
effect of " Wilhelm Meister " on
Carlyle, 32; his comprehension
of Carlyle, 32; "a wise and
great man," 32; last volume of
life of, 32; meets Schiller, 36;
wiser than Herder or Wieland,
46; Carlyle's approval of, 46;
"again dangerously ill," 60; on
idea and action, 81; called ill-
bred by British critics, 126 ; Car-
lyle's opinion of, 127 ; on the
sublime, 128; on his work, 129
(see note) ; death of, 259

Good, inseparable (for man) from
Evil, 227 (see note 2)

Goring, Lord, the Parliament's
guardian and betrayer, 1 1 ; after-
ward Royalist general of Horse,
11 ; "a very sufficient cozener,"
but "clever" and "very origi-
nal," 11; "the dog," 13; mis-
behaves, 13 ; goes to France, 13

Gottingen, professors at, account
of, 117; many men of note pro-
duced at, 117

Gowkthrapple, Dr., 102 (see note 2)

Grammarians, Italian, no

" Grammont," Carlyle's desire to
read, 53

Greenvil, Sir Dick, the Nabal, 13 ;
levies enormous contributions,
13; is imprisoned, but escapes,

r 3

Grey, Earl, Carlyle on, 273, 274

Gries, translations by, 131

Grossi, Thomas, poet and Ro-
mantic, in; said to surpass
Tasso, in

Grotius, his method of reading
"Terence," 128

Gryph, Andreas, death of, 119

Guards, troopers of the, all gentle-
men's sons, 19

Hacket, Bishop, Life of Abp. Wil-
liams, 2, note

Hackman, Parson, comment on,
243.

Hadrian, epitaph on Csesar, 123

Hambden, accused of treason, 2 ;
killed at Chalgrove-field, 6 ; Car-
lyle's estimate of, 7; coupled
with Washington by Carlyle, 7 ;
portrait of, by Clarendon, 8

Hamilton, Duke of, defeated by
Cromwell, 1 6 ; taken prisoner at
Uttoxeter, 16; beheaded, 17
Harrison, conducts Charles I to

Westminster, 16 ; origin of, 16
Hazelrig, accused of treason, 2
Hazlitt, Carlyle's opinion of, 213
Honor-titles, derivation of, past and

future, 185
Heeren, biographer of Heyne, 116
Henderson, Mr., pitted against
Bishop Steward, 11 ; " why does
not McCrie write a life of? " 12 ;
tries to convert Charles I, 15;
dies of a broken heart, 15
Herder, Carlyle has good hopes of,
33; his "Nemesis," 33; account
of and quotation from, 33, 34;
compared to Hervey, 34 ; his
essay about the decay of taste
used by Madame de Stael, 34;
quotation from Herder, 35, 36 ;
hates the " new philosophy," 45 ;
his " Ideen," 72 ; Carlyle's criti-
cism of it, 72 ; Carlyle's desire to
see more of, 73 ; a sort of "Browne
redivivus," 73
Heyne, list of works of, 115, 116;
birthplace of, 116; short account
of, 116; "not great, but large,"

"7 .
Historian, the, disadvantage of,

. I2 4.

Histrio-Mastix, Prynne's, 29

Hoddam Hill, 64 (see note)

Hogg, James (the"Ettrick Shep-
herd") , meets Carlyle at Fraser's,
249; described by Carlyle, 250,
251

Holland, Lord, 17

Hollis, accused of treason, 2 ; quar-
rels with Ireton, 15; pulls Ire-
ton by the nose, 15

Homer, greater than Shakespeare ?
187

Hooker, as to the " Mother of
Error," 143

Hopton, defeats Parliament at
Bradock-Down, 6; defeated at
Arlesford by Waller, 9; fails to
save Royalist cause after Naseby,

14
Hopton-heath, Battle of, 6; loca-
tion of, 6; Parliament beaten
at, 6

297

INDEX,

Horace, on mastering things, 132
(see also note)

Hume, " Essay on Human Na-
ture," 262 (see note)

Hunt, Leigh, seeks out Carlyle,
256; Carlyle's opinion of, 257

Hurry (a Scot), account of, 7

Individuality, as to intellectual,

114 ; as to moral, 114
Industrialism, historical sketch of,

XI 3
Industrials, the, 113 ; Saint-Simon

the chief of the, 113; political

theories of the, 113
Institutions (or Laws), as to, 141
Immortality, conception of, de-
pends on that of Time, 222
Ireton, Henry, quarrels with Hol-

lis, 15 ; refuses to fight him, 15 ;

dies of plague at Limerick, 1 8 ;
Iriarte, Tomas, Spanish writer,

109; Carlyle's opinion, 109
Irving, Edward, "may be yet a

Bishop," 185

Jeffrey, resigns editorship of" Ed-
inburgh Review," 140 (see note);
to see Carlyle at Dumfries, 141 ;
offers Carlyle an annuity, 155 ;
visits Carlyle at Craigenputtock,
173; as viewed by Carlyle, 173,
174, 175 ; Lord Advocate and M.
P., 185; emotion on taking of-
fice, 185 ; receives Carlyle in
London, 193, 194
Johnson, Dr., Carlyle on, 60
Joyce, Cornet, seizes Charles I at
Holmby, 14 ; his authority for
doing so, 14, 15

Kant, Carlyle on, 41, 46 ; writers
on, 112; his system of morality
universal in Germany, 112; de-
nies that Fichte made use of his
system, 112; reminds Carlyle of
Father Boscovich, 112
Katherine of Portugal (and Charles
II), stanza on, by Swift or Roch-
ester, s
Kimbolton, Lord, 2
Kings, divine right of, 184, 185
Kinnaird, Carlyle at (1823), 50, 51
Kirchberg, Hartman von, his epi-
taph on himself, 156

Know, how to, what we are, 152
" Knox," McCries', of no im-
mense weight, 5

Lacepede, Comte de, history of
Europe by, 107; Carlyle's opinion
of it, 107

Lacr6telle, a superficial historian,
32 ; estimate of, 32 ; his " Re-
ligious Wars," 52; Carlyle's
opinion of it, 52

Landsdown, Battle of, near Bath,
8 ; Parliament beaten at, 8

Language, all, except concerning
sensual objects, figurative, 141,
142 (see note, p. 142)

Lardner, Dr. Dionysius (of the
Cabinet Cyclopedia), seeks Car-
lyle's aid, 231 (see notes, P» 2 34):
a "Langohriger,"234 (see note);
loses Carlyle, 254

Leibnitz, locates truth, 100; re-
verse view by the English, 100

Lesly, David, defeats Montrose at
Philipshaugh, 14

Leyden, Dr. John, verses to Mrs.
Buller, 63

Life, logical import of, 180; the
portico of man's Existence, 221

Lilburn, persecuted by Star Cham-
ber, 18; taken at Brentford, 18;
attacks Cromwell, 18; is prose-
cuted by Cromwell,but acquitted,
18; the Cobbett of those days, 18

Lilis, first wife of Adam, 82

Literature, the old English, spirit
of better than that of ours, 69 ;
touched with true beauty, 69;
Elizabethan, the only truly poeti-
cal, of England, 70 ; printing not
the symbol of, 170, 171

Literary men, the only sovereigns
of the world, 184

Logau, T. von, couplet by, 118;
couplet by, 119

London, as to the size of, 209, 210;
hurry of life in, 210; Carlyle on
the want of Government in, 211 ;
description of, 211 ; difficulty of
finding places in, 237; no lend-
ing library in London, 237 (see
note 2)

Londonderry, wrested from the
City of London by Star Chamber,
afterwards restored, 2

298

INDEX.

Longman & Co., Carlyle presents
letter of introduction to, 196; re-
fuse Carlyle's "German Lit.
History," 106

Lostwithiel, Essex's foot capitu-
lates at, 10

Ludlow, succeeds Ireton, 18 ; at
Battle of Edgehill, 191a trooper
of the Guards, 19; his "Mem-
oirs," 19; Carlyle's opinion of
his U Memoirs," 19

Luther, asceticism of, 136; last
words of, 137; Melanchthon's
life of, 138; Seckendorf's history
of, 138; other works concerning,
138; ancestry 0^138; monastic
life of, 138; Motschmanus on, at
Erfurt, 138; character of, as a
monk, 138, 139 (see note, p. 139) ;
chronology of life of, 139; char-
acter of, 139; attachment to
music of, 139 ; Carlyle desires to
write a life of, 140; such men as,
needed in each century, 140;
Carlyle thinks seriously of dis-
cussing, 142.

McCrie, his " Knox," no immense
weight, 5

McDiarmid (editor of " Dumfries
Courier "), Carlyle describes, 272

Macaulay, T. B., Carlyle on, 236
(see note 3), 276; bought oranges
before speaking in House of
Commons, 276

Machiavel, comment on, 15

Maginn, William, meets Carlyle
at Fraser's, 258; described by
Carlyle, 258 ; the real originator
of " Fraser's Magazine," 258

Man, history of a, like that of his
world, 132; Carlyle's own ex-
perience as to the history of a,
132; a visible mystery, 136; is a
spirit, 161; viewed in a mere
logical sense, 163; the moral na-
ture of, 164; is an apparition,
164; infinitely venerable to every
other man, 166; Novalis on the
body of, 166

Manchester, Earl of, defeats Ru-
pert and Newcastle at Marston
Moor, 10

Manzoni, poet and romanticist,
hi; failure as a tragedian, 11 1

Massinger (dramatist), disappoint-
ing to Carlyle, 31; criticism of,

3i» 3 2

Marshall, Mr., who was? 1

Marston Moor, Battle of, 10;
Royalists defeated by Manches-
ter at, "chiefly by Cromwell's
iron band," 10; location of, 10

Meditation and Seclusion, Carlyle
on, 176

Memoirs, various, list of, 128

Mendelssohn, the "Phadon " of, a
half imitation of Plato's "Phae-
don," 94; possesses beauty and
simplicity, 94 ; divided into three
dialogues, 95 ; summary of them,
95,96 .

"Mercunus, newspaper, set on
foot during Spanish Armada, 4

Merelles, same as Corsicrown, 224,
225; also called "nine men's
morrice," 225

Metaphors, prodigious influence of,
142 ; essay on, needed, 142 ;
Carlyle determines to write essay
on, 142 ; " Sartor Resartus " to
be regarded as the essay on, 142
(see note 1)

Michaud, "Histoire des Croi-
sades," 118

Milan, number of journals in, 112

Mill, J. S., sees Carlyle, 205;
pleases Carlyle, 205

Millot, work on the Troubadours,

Milton, Defensio Pop. Angl. ag 1 .
the Def. Reg. of Saumaise, 3,
5 ; Carlyle's analysis of, 3 ;
"not a man of breeding," 3;
wife of, said to "have worn the
breeks," 3; life and writings of,
by Birch, 8 ; adjt-gen'l. to Wal-
ler, 19; his history of Britain,
22 ; criticism of, by Carlyle, 22 ;
some " agates " picked from it,
23 ; his first publication, " Of
Reformation," 23 ; praise of it,
by Carlyle, 24; examination of
it, 24, 25 ; his second pamphlet,
"Of Prelatical Episcopacy, 25;
characterization of it, 25; his
third pamphlet, "The Reason
of Church Government," 26;
examination of it, 26 ; praise of
it, 27 ; Carlyle only beginning to

299

INDEX.

Milton — continued.
understand Milton, 27; Sym-
mons' life of, and Hayley's life
of, characterized, 27 ; '* Axle of
Discipline," 27; account of the
"Axle," 28; Carlyle's criticism
of himself as a critic of, 28 ; last
two pamphlets of 1641, "Anim-
adversions on the Remonstrant's
defense of Smectymnuus" and
"Apology for Sm.," 28; criti-
cism of both, 28; the "Areopa-
gitica" of, 29; account and criti-
cism of it, 29, 30 ; Brougham in
comparison with, 29 ; Carlyle to
ascertain more clearly the aims
of, 31

Mind, compared with nature, 132

Montaigne, Carlyle's opinion of
"Essais" of, 53

Montrose, secret history of, 12;
defeated at Philipshaugh by
Lesly, 14; execution of, a dis-
grace to Scottish Kirk, 17 ; char-
acter of, 17

Montrevil, a French agent, 14;
negotiates surrender of Charles
I to the Scotch, 14

Moore, Thomas, Carlyle's opinion
of, 236

Morality, and action, 228 ; perfect,
not an object of consciousness,
229

Moratm, L.-F. de, restorer of dra-
matic art in Spain, 108

Moratin, N-F. de, father of L-F.
de M., writer of tragedy, 108

Miillner, German playwright, 205
(see note 1), 206, 211

Murray, offered "Sartor Resar-
tus" by Carlyle, 194; described
by Carlyle, 194

Musicians, earliest Italian, 13T ;
German, 131

Mystery, every living man a vis-
ible, 136

Naharro, B. T., playwright of 1 6th

century, 108
Napier, succeeds Jeffrey on the

" Edinburgh Review" and gives

Carlyle letter to Longman's, 194

(see note 1)
Napoleon, remark by Carlyle on,

7 ; compared with Hambden, 7

Narration, primary defect in the
art of, 124 ; this understood by
Carlyle, 124

Naseby, Battle of, King defeated
at, 12 ; good description of, by
Clarendon, 12; ruin of Royalist
cause after, 13

Navigation, Act of, passed in an-
ger at the Dutch, 17, its intent,
17 ; attributed by Raynal to King
James, 17 ; was the beginning of
the Dutch-English'quarrel, 17

Nepenthe, Helena's, supposition
concerning, 93

Newbury, battle of, both sides
claim victory, 8 ; Lord Falkland
killed at, 8

Newcastle, Duke of, beaten by
Manchester at Marston Moor,
10; flies beyond the sea, 10

Newspapers, in Milton's time, 4

Nicolas, Sir Nicholas Harris, 143 ;
remark of, to Carlyle, concerning
booksellers, 256

"No day without writing a line,"
167

Note book (No. 1) begun while
reading Clarendon's History
(Edin. 1822), 1, note

Novalis, "Schriften" of, review of
the, 135; review published, 140;
Carlyle's opinion of, 140; upon
religion, 149 ; on the body of
man, 166

O'Connell, a real demagogue, 247
" Oceana," 29

Oxford, attempted treaty in 1643
at, 6

Pain, irremediable, alleviation to,
164 ; the measure of life and of
talent, 169 ; a stone feels no, 169

Paley, Carlyle's criticism of, 103

Palm, the, legend of, 119

Paris, number of booksellers in,
no; number of printing houses
in, no; number of active presses
in, no

Passeroni, anecdote of, 130; his
"Cicerone," 130; death of, 130

Peers, House of, abolished soon
after King's death, 17

Petrarquistes, the, 109; "the glo-
rious Spanish Literature," 109

3OO

INDEX,

Petronius, quotation from, 97
"Phadon," the, of Mendelssohn

(see Mendelssohn)
Philosophy, Political, what it

should be, 144; what it is, 144
Phonetic characters well received

in Italy, 111
Plato, Antimachus Clarius on, 124
Playing cards, on the date and

origin of, 224
Poem, does a, differ from prose? 187
Poems that live, birth of, 103; he-
roic, as to the true, 188
Poet, what a, should be, 48; the

ultimate object of a, 124
Poetry, the ultimate object of, 71
Politeness, peculiar to the rich and

well-born, 166
Politics, not Life but the house

wherein Life is lead, 141 ; the

noblest science, 165; Carlyle's

alienation from, 274
Pope, and his school, pedagogical

poets, 70
Potatoes, in London, exorbitant

price of, 210
Principle, Carlyle's political, 275
Printing, not the symbol of litera-
ture, 170, 171
Problem, the eternal, of man, 208;

a further and harder, found in

London, 208 ; the deepest, in

these days, 264
Profane, the, proportion of, to the

sacred, 188
Prose, does it differ from a poem ?

187
Proverb, German, a, 129 (see also

note 2)
Pullus Jovis, etc., 85 (see note)
Pulpit, the, advantage of, 215 ; the

true, 263
Pym, accused of treason, 2

Quincunx, the, 68 ; Carlyle on, 68.

Quixote, Don, philosophical indif-
ference of Sancho Panza in, 145

Qualities, in man, the unhappiest,
127

Quarrels, origin of all, 149, 150

" Quarterly Review," the, Car-
lyle's opinion of, 143

Raleigh, Sir Walter, advice of, to
his son, 69

Ranelagh, formerly the Earl of R.'s

house, 225
Rationalists, 102
Reading (town), taken 1643, 6
Reading, a weariness of the flesh,

53

Reason, decisions of, superior to
those of understanding, 83; re-
lation of, to Understanding, 142 ;
can never be extinguished, 142

Reform Bill, lost, 202 (see note 1) ;
the New, carried, 271 (see note)

"Register, Literary Annual,"
prospectus for, 77-81

Reinhold (coupled with Fichte), 46

"Religio Medici," the, Carlyle's
opinion of, 69 ; " made a mighty
noise at its first appearance," 90

Religion, moral of the Christian,
150; easy to write, hard to prac-
tice, 150; the Christian, like
some Nile, 158; the true element
of, 164; the cement of Society,
179; is Art higher than? 204

Reluctance, to turn back, Carlyle's,
266

Remedy, the beginning of a, 209

Remonstrance, The, 1

" Revue Encyclopedique" (French
magazine) worthy of imitation
in Britain, no

Richter, Jean Paul, quotation from
the " Levana" of, 114 ; anecdote
from the "Levana," 123; on
salvation, 143

Ritson, "Fairy Tales" and "Old
Ballads," 213

River, a, as to the right and left
bank of, 122

Rochester (or Swift), stanza on
Charles II and Katherine of
Portugal, 5

Rogers, Samuel, characterization
of, by Carlyle, 236 (see note 4)

Romantics versus Classics, 111

Roundway, Battle of, near Devizes,
8 ; Parliament beaten at, 8

Rupert, Prince, beaten by Man-
chester at Marston Moor, 10;
goes southward, 10; son of ex-
king of Bohmen, 10; Carlyle's
estimate of, 10 ; defeated at
Naseby by Fairfax, 12; "a fiery
ettercap, a fractious chiel," 12;
in command in Ireland, 16

3OI

INDEX.

Ruthven ("a Scot"), defeated by
Hopton at Bradock-Down, 6 ;
afterward General Brentford,
"dotard, drunkard, deaf," 10

Sachs, Hans, Carlyle on, 74

Sacred, the, to the profane, pro-
portions of, 18S

Sadler's Well, origin of, 225 (see
note 1)

St. Paul's or " Paradise Lost " the
greater necessity? 245

Saint-Simon, chief of the Indus-
triels, 113; reputed to be mad,
113; descended from Charle-
magne, 113

Saint-Simonians, write to Carlyle,
158 ; have strange notions, with
a large spicing of truth, 158 ; are
among the Signs of the Times,
158; answered by Carlyle, 158
(see note 2)

" Sandy," Uncle, death of, 147

"Sartor Resartus," the germ of,
136 (see note 2)

Saumaise, Defensio Reg., 3, 5;
Milton's abuse of, 3; Voltaire's
reference to, 4, note; his mode
of reasoning, 4

Scaliger, Joseph Justus, professor
at Leyden, 88 ; his works, 88

Scaliger, Julius Csesar, quotation
from, 87 ; his birth and paren-
tage, 88; life and character of,
88

Schelling, his " System of Iden-
tity," 112

Schiller, birth and origin, 36 ; ob-
ligation to Madame von Woll-
zogen, 36 ; visit to Weimar, 36 ;
sees Herder and Wieland, 36 ;
joins "Teutsches Mercur," 36;
visits Rudolstadt and meets his
future wife, 36 ; sees Goethe, 36 ;
various remarks on, 36, 37; de-
scription of, 37, 38 ; not inclined
to noisy pleasures, 38 ; close con-
nection with the theatre of, 38 ;
strict demands upon the per-
formers of his plays, 39 ; his
benevolence and kindliness, 39 ;
his upright conduct in business,
39 ; delineation of himself by,
40 ; Carlyle's summing up of, 40,
41 ; quotation from, 48, 49

Schlegel, A., called on by Carlyle,
258; dined by Hayward and
Lardner, 258 ; a literary Gig-
man, 258

Schlegel, F., Carlyle on, 42; as to
thought, 104: his "Philosophy
of Life," 129; death of, 135;
comment on, by Carlyle, 135

Scotland, nothing poetical in, but
its religion, 133 ; Carlyle's atti-
tude toward, 133 ; Carlyle's un-
equal knowledge of, 133; have
the gentry of, lost their national
character ? 134 ; is the peasant of,
the true Scotchman ? 134; people
of, compared with people of Eng-
land, 135 ; music and songs of,
135 ; books on, to be consulted,
135 ; Scott's history of, not a his-
tory, 168; what history of, is like,
169; herself not there, 169; be-
havior of the nobles of, 169 ; pro-
gressed independent of her his-
tory, 169

Scots, "ran like collies (fidem
detis?) " at Marston Moor, 10

Scott, Sir Walter, " the great Res-
taurateur of Europe," 71 ; what
he might have been, and what
he is, 71; his novels character-
ized, 71 ; Carlyle on some char-
acters in, 126 ; the " gentlemen "
of, Carlyle on, 127; as to his
"Bonaparte," 127; his charac-
ter-building contrasted with
Burns's, 127 ; Carlyle on his
" History of Scotland," 168; in-
ference drawn from, by Carlyle,
168; leaves England for Naples
on a Government ship, 214; in
precarious health, 214; estimate
of, by Carlyle, 214

Seclusion, and Meditation, Carlyle
on, 176

Secrecy, the element of all Good-
ness, 177

" Self denying ordinance," pro-
posed by Cromwell and Vane,
11; object of, 11

Shaftesbury, Earl of, his " Charac-
teristics," 71; criticism of, 72

Shakespeare, how to prize, 32 ; re-
vision of above as to Carlyle, 32
(see also p. 121) ; greater than
Homer? 187

302

INDEX.

Shepherd (Unitarian parson), Car-
lyle's meeting with and opinion
of, 244, 245

Shiel (Irish orator), convicted of
lying, 247

Shoes, good, not to be had in
London, 207

Sickingen, Franz von, one of the
noblest men of the Reformation
period, 166 ; defended Ulrich von
Hutten, 166; fought against
Wiirtemberg, 166 ; the terror of
evil-doers, 166 ; read Luther with
Hutten, 166; good breeding of,
166 ; is killed fighting against
the Bishop of Triers, 166; anec-
dote concerning death of, 166,
167; enemies weep at the fune-
ral of, 167

" Siegwart," Miller's, the begin-
ning of the sentimental period,
120

Silence, Carlyle on, 176; contrasted
with Speech, 177; the nobleness
of, 228

"Sister Margaret," death of, 156 ;

Society, a wonder of wonders, 165 ;
division of, by Carlyle, 215

Sonata, Devil's, the, 130

South, quotation from, 97 ; Car-
lyle's opinion of, 97

Southey, Carlyle on the " Travels "

of > 5 .
Spain, literature in, English igno-
rance of, 109
Speech and Silence, Carlyle on, 177
Spenser, quotation from, 49, 50 ;
pleases Carlyle, 50 ; a dainty
body, 50
Spirits, Wandering, the, 167
" Sports," Carlyle laments the ab-
sence of, 222
Stamford, defeated by Royalists at

Stratton Hill, 8
Stanza (by Swift or Rochester), on
Charles II and Katherine of Por-
tugal, 5
Star Chamber, date of institution, 2
Steward, Bishop, "pitted against

Mr. Henderson," 11
Stewart, " Aunt Mary," death of,

i47
Strahan, defeats Montrose, 17
Stratton hill, Batde of, 8 ; Parlia-
ment defeated at, 8 ; location of, 8

Strode, accused of treason, 2
Swift (or Rochester), stanza on

Charles II and Katherine of

Portugal, 5 ; quotation from, 103 ;

Carlyle's comment on, 103
Swinburne, travels of, explanation

of the aequo pulsat pede in, 60

Tacitus, as to physicians, 86; as to

astrologers, 122
Tait (bookseller), to start a new

Radical magazine, 232
Talent, Coleridge's distinction be-
tween genius and, 46
Talma, seen in role of CEdipe, 98
Tartini, Giuseppe, anecdote of, 130
Tasso, Carlyle proposes a discourse
on, 123 (note 3); his "Del
Poema Eroico," Carlyle on, 125;
his " Gerusalemme," 125; a
mystic, 125
Teaching, is oral superior to the

written mode of? 212
Temple, Sir William, Carlyle's
opinion of, 84 ; no artist or phi-
losopher, but man of action, 84;
"Terence," how Grotius read, 128
Themistocles, his gift of forgetting,

53 (see note)
Theology, curious division of, 124
Thinking and Thoughts, 228
Thought, is every, an inspiration,

166
Thoughts and Thinking, 228
Tieck, Runenberg, 66; his "Ge-
noveva," 73; consideration of
characters in it, 73 ; next to
Goethe, Richter being dead, 74;
quotation from, 81
Time, Goethe on the spending o»,
31 ; conception of, determines
the meaning of Immortality, 222
" Times," the, criticism of Schil-
ler, Part II, by, 61 ; Carlyle's
comment on, 6i
Titus, reproaches Vespasian for

imposing tax on fullers, 261
Tribula, described by Carlyle, 260
Tribulation, derivation of the word,

200
Truth, difficult to obtain the, 217

Ugoni, Camillo, his " History of
Italian Literature," 130; its
scope, 130

3°3

INDEX.

Understanding, decisions of, in-
ferior to those of Reason, 83 ; re-
lation of, to Reason, 142
Union, spiritual, power of, 164, 165
Unitarians, Carlyle and the, 245
Universe, wonder of the, 142
" Upstart companions," Claren-
don's epithet, 2
" Urne Burial," the best of Sir T.
Browne's books, 67; Carlyle's
criticism of, 67
Utilitarians, the crowning mercy
of the age, 145 ; trend of, 145 ;
contrasted with Whigs, 172
Uxbridge-treaty, graphically de-
lineated, 11

Vane, Sir H., proposes "self-de-
nying ordinance," 11

Vauxhall,formerly Spring Gardens,
225

Vespasian, lays a tax on fullers,
261; reproached by Titus for
doing so, 261

Villemain, writer of "Melanges,"
107

Virtue, its own reward, why ? 103 ;
as regarded by a healthy or an
unhealthy moral nature, 230

Vives, Ludovicus, comment on,
86 ; history of, 90

Voltaire, his philosophy character-
ized, 85; Carlyle finds difficulty
in writing on, 135; Carlyle's
paper on, 140

Wages, disparity of, 159

Waller, SirW., Parliamentary gen-
eral, beaten at Landsdown and
Roundway, 8 ; retakes Arundel,
9 ; defeats Royalists at Arlesford,
9 ; loses king at Worcester, 10

Waller (the poet), betrayed to the
Parliament, 6; arraigned by
Parliament and banished to Ber-
muda, 6

Washington, coupled with Hamb-
den by Carlyle, 7

Werner, Zacharias, life by Hitzig,
82; his "Mutter der Makka-
baer," 82; his history, 82; Car-
lyle's opinion of, 83

Whigs, contrasted with Utilitarians,
172 ; the grand " Dilettanti,"
172

Whole, as to the constitution of a,

* 8 7

Wieland, meets Schiller, 36; in-
duces Schiller to join the " Teut-
sches Mercur," 36; opposes the
" new philosophy," 45 ; his
reason for doing so, 45, 46

Williams, Archbishop of York, "a
very queer man," 2

Winckelmann, quotation from, 106;
"the only two modern Friends,
106; Goethe's opinion of, 107;
quotations from, 107

Wolff, most characteristic writing
of, 119

Wollstonecraft, Mary, life by God-
win, 204 ; epitomized by Carlyle,
205

Wonder, the basis of worship, 162;
the reign of, 162

Worcester, Scots defeated at, 17

Words, the strangest and most po-
tent product of our nature, 176

Works Carlyle would like to see
written, 119, 120

Writers, Spanish, 108, 109

Writing, Carlyle on, 136

"Youth, happy limitedness of," 128

304

n

V